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THE    FINAL    FAITH 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

A  STATEMENT   OF 

THE  NATURE  AND  AUTHORITY  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

AS  THE   RELIGION   OF  THE  WORLD 


W.  DOUGLAS    MACKENZIE 

M.A.(Edin.),  D.D.(Yale  and  HbiN.),  LL.D. (Princeton) 

PRESIDENT  OF  HARTFORD  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 
AUTHOR  OF    "JOHN   MACKENZIE:   SOUTH   AFRICAN    MISSIONARY   AND  STATESMAN 

"the  ethics  OF  gambling"  etc. 


mew  Botft 

THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY 
1910 


TO 

THE    BELOVED    MEMORY 

OF  THE 

Eev.  WILLIAM  HOWARD  CAMPBELL,  M.A.,  B.D. 

OF  SOUTH   INDIA 

WHO,    AS  EVANGELIST  AND  TEACHER,    PHILOSOPHER  AND    NATURALIST 

LINGUIST  AND  AUTHOR 

FOR  TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS  GAVE    HIS   GREAT  AND 

VARIED  POWERS  WITHOUT   RESERVE  TO  THE  EXTENSION  OF 

THE    FINAL    FAITH 

AND   HIMSELF  ENTERED   INTO   ITS   HEAVENLY  FULFILMENT 
ON 

February  18th,  1910 


210617 


PREFACE 


THE  following  chapters  have  been  written  under  the 
conviction  that  the  Christian  Religion  has  come 
to  one  of  the  great  crises  in  its  history.  The  recent 
World  Missionary  Conference,  held  at  Edinburgh,  has 
borne  ample  testimony  that  this  conviction  is  wide- 
spread among  the  missionaries  and  other  leading 
servants  of  the  Gospel. 

No  need  of  the  hour  is  greater  than  that  many  attempts 
should  be  made  to  define  or  describe  the  Christian  Faith 
as  it  confronts  the  great  world  with  its  claims  and  pro- 
mises, its  sense  of  universal  authority,  its  assertion  that 
in  and  through  its  own  nature  as  a  historical  Fact  and 
its  own  message  as  a  Divine  Fact,  the  will  of  God  is 
deahng  with  the  destiny  of  mankind.  For  the  sake  of 
the  missionaries  abroad  and  the  ministry  in  Christian 
lands,  for  the  sake  of  all  who  are  called  upon  to  support 
and  promote  in  any  way  the  work  of  converting  the 
world  to  this  one  Faith,  these  attempts  are  of  essential 
importance.  We  must  be  sure  that  our  task  is  not  the 
offspring  of  bHnd  prejudice  or  Western  pride.  We 
cannot  go  on  with  it  intelUgently  and  earnestly  unless 
we  are  in  our  own  souls  assured,  not  that  Christianity 
is  a  better  reUgion  than  any  other,  but  that  it  is  the 

absolute    religion,   the    one    final    way    in    which  God 

—  vii  — 


PREFACE 

Himself  is  concerned  with  the  saving  and  perfecting  of 
mankind. 

This  book  is  intended  to  be  a  contribution  to  that 
work,  one  of  the  many  attempts  which  the  present 
author  beheves  that  theologians  and  preachers  must  and 
will  make  to  expound  Christianity  afresh  to  this  genera- 
tion as  the  true  rehgion  of  the  world.  It  is  sent  out 
in  the  hope  that  it  may  be  used  as  a  Handbook  by  many 
of  those  who  are,  in  growing  numbers,  fired  with  mis- 
sionary enthusiasm,  for  strengthening  their  own  faith 
and  for  lighting  the  same  fire  in  other  hearts. 

It  may  be  added,  for  the  sake  of  some  readers,  that 
the  successive  Christian  doctrines  discussed  in  these 
papers  have  been  selected  solely  because  of  their  close 
relation  to  the  central  theme  and  object  of  the  book. 
The  exposition  of  these  topics  does  not  follow  a  uniform 
plan.  In  each  case  it  is  concerned  with  those  aspects 
of  the  subject  which  it  seemed  important  to  emphasise 
in  the  presence  of  the  "  modern  mind,"  and  in  view 
of  the  special  aim  of  the  whole  work. 

The  influence  of  Christianity  on  the  social  evolution 
of  man,  while  briefly  referred  to  in  the  following  pages, 
has  been  more  fully  illustrated  in  an  earlier  volume 
entitled  "  Christianity  and  the  Progress  of  Man." 


W.  Douglas  Mackenzie. 


Ivy  Lodge, 
GuUane,  Scotland, 
July  26th,  1910. 


viii  — 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 


PAQK 

Preface     ........      vii 

CHAPTER  I 
THE  THREE  MISSIONARY  RELIGIONS 
Introductory      ...,...! 

I.  The  Rise  op  Missionary  Religions 

1.  Religion  .......        4 

2.  The  Rise  of  Missionary  Religions  .  .  .5 

3.  The  Three  Missionary  Religions  ....        8 

II.  The  Oldest  Missionary  Religion:  Buddhism 

1.  The  Founder  of  Buddhism  and  his  Doctrine       .  .       10 

2.  The  Secret  of  its  Missionary  Power         .  .  .14 

III.  The  Youngest  Missionary  Religion  :  Mohammedanism 

1.  Its  Pounder         ......       16 

2.  Its  Fundamental  Doctrines         .  .  .  .17 

3.  The  Weakness  of  Mohammedanism        .  .  .19 

CHAPTER  II 
THE  RISE  OF  THE  FINAL  RELIGION 

I.  What  is  Meant  by  an  Absolute  or  Final  Religion     .      22 

1.  Absolute  ......      23 

2.  Final        .......      24 

II.  The  General  Mode  op  its  Foundation 

1.  The  Three  Stages  .  .  .  .  .26 

2.  Human  Need  and  Divine  Grace  .  .  .28 

—  ix  — 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


III.  The  First  Stage:  Prophetic  Revelation 

1.  Monotheism 

2.  The  Messianic  Hope 


IV.  The  Second  Stage:  Jesus  Christ 

1.  His  Relationship  with  God 

2.  His  Revelation  of  the  Father 

3.  The  Messiahship  . 

4.  His  Expectation  of  Death 

5.  The  Cross  and  the  Resurrection 


PAGE 

30 
30 
34 

36 
38 
39 
40 
42 
43 


V.  The  Third  Stage:  The  Christian  Consciousness  and 
THE  World         ...... 


45 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  CHRISTIAN  REVELATION  OF  GOD 
Introductory       ...... 

I.  Compared  with  Agnosticism 

1.  The  Truth  in  Agnosticism 

2.  The  Revelation  in  Nature 

3.  The  Revelation  in  Christ 

4.  Revelation  in  the  Christian  Consciousness 

II.  Compared  with  Pantheism 

1.  Pantheism  ..... 

2.  Christ's  Conception  of  the  Father 

3.  God  revealed  in  a  Person 

4.  Christian  Experience       .... 

III.  The  Enrichment  of  Monotheism 

1.  The  Mohammedan  View  of  God 

2.  The  Worship  of  Christ     .... 

3.  The  Spirit  of  God  .... 

4.  The  Monotheism  of  the  Apostles 

5.  The  Modem  Situation     .... 

6.  The  Doctrine  of  the  Trinity  in  the  Light  of  Reason 

(1)  God  as  Rational  Being 

(2)  God  as  Eternal  Father 


50 

51 
52 
53 
54 
55 


57 
59 
61 
62 


63 
65 
66 
67 
71 

74 
76 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  CHRIST 


PAGE 
NTRODUCTORY         .......         79 

I.  The    Origin   and    Basis   for   the  Doctrine    of    the 

Incarnation 

1.  Non-Christian  Incarnations        .            .            ,            .81 

2.  Two  Tests            ..... 

82 

(1)  The  Witness  of  disciples     . 

83 

(2)  The  Consciousness  of  the  Founder 

85 

(a)  Christ's  Harmony  with  God    . 

86 

(&)  His  Kingship 

86 

(c)  His  Power  to  reveal  God 

87 

(d)  Christ  and  the  Effect  of  His  Death 

88 

(e)  Christ  as  Judge 

89 

(/)  Son  of  God  and  Son  of  Man     . 

89 

II.  The  Place  of  the  Incarnation  in  Apostolic  Life  and 

Doctrine 

1.  Jesus  as  Christ  and  Lord             .            .            .            .91 

2.  The  Eternal  Basis  of  Lordship 

93 

(1)  Son  of  God 

.      93 

(2)  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 

.      94 

(3)  PauUne  Teaching    . 

.      95 

(4)  Johannine  Teaching 

.      96 

3.  The  Birth  of  Jesus 

.      98 

4.  Incarnation  and  Salvation 

.     100 

5.  The  Love  of  God 

.     102 

6.  Incarnation  and  the  Finality  of  the  Gospel 

.     103 

II.  Explanations  of  the  Person  of  Christ 

.     103 

1.  Temporary  Incarnation  . 

.     104 

2.  Incomplete  Incarnation  . 

.     104 

3.  Subtraction  from  each  Nature 

.     105 

4.  One  Person,  two  Natures 

. 

.     105 

The  Modem  Situation 

. 

.     106 

CHAPTER  V 
THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  SIN  AND  EVIL 
Introductory      ...... 

I.  *'  Something  Wrong  "  with  the  Race 

1.  Proved  even  by  Enemies  of  Rehgion 

2.  Due  to  Man's  Spiritual  Nature    . 

—  xi  — 


108 

109 
110 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


II.  Evil  SuFFERma  and  Sin     . 

1.  Evil  in  Nature     .... 

2.  Evil  in  Human  Experience 

III.  The  Doctrine  op  Sin  in  the  Old  Testament 

1.  Derived  from  Monotheism 

2.  The  Late  Prophets 

3.  Legalism  .... 

IV.  The  Teaching  op  Jesus 

1.  The  Need  of  a  Higher  Standard  . 

2.  The  Depth  of  Righteousness  and  of  Sin  . 

3.  Man  as  Lost 

4.  The  Need  of  Salvation 

V.  The  Apostolic  Teaching 

1.  The  Doctrine  of  John 

2.  The  Doctrine  of  Paul 

(1)  Sin  and  Law 

(2)  Sin  and  Flesh 

(3)  Sin  and  Grace 

VI.  The  Modern  Situation 

1.  Sources  of  Attack  on  the  Bible  Doctrine 

2.  So-Called  Evolutionary  Explanation  of  Sin 

3.  Sin  and  Man's  Place  in  Nature    . 

(1)  Invasion  of  Nature 

(2)  The  Cost  of  Freedom 

(3)  Sin  and  the  Gospel 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  CHRISTIAN  MESSAGE  OF  SALVATION 


Introductory      .... 

I.  The  Substance  of  Salvation 

1.  Forgiveness  of  Sins 

(1)  In  the  Gospels 

(2)  In  the  Apostolic  Message    . 

(3)  The  Meaning  of  Forgiveness 

(4)  Removal  of  Penalty 

2.  DeUverance  from  the  Power  of  Sin 

3.  The  Immortal  Life 

(1)  Eternal  Life 

(2)  Moral  Power  of  the  Christian  Hope 

—  xii  — 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


II.  The  Divine  Acts  of  Salvation     . 

1.  The  Atonement  .... 

(1)  The  Gospels  and  the  Death  of  Christ 

(2)  The  Apostles  and  the  Cross 

(3)  The  Modem  Dislike  of  this  Doctrine 

(4)  The  Cost  of  Righteousness  in  a  Worid  of  Sin 

(5)  The  Cost  of  Love  for  a  Worid  of  Sin 

2.  The  Resurrection  .... 

3.  The  Gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit 


PAGE 

152 
154 
164 
156 
157 
158 
160 
164 
165 


CHAPTER  VII 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FAITH 
Introductory      .... 

I.  The  Teaching  of  Jestts  about  Faith 

1.  Trust  in  Himself 

2.  Trust  in  God 

3.  Ignoring  other  Methods  . 

4.  His  Victory  and  their  Faith 

II.  The  Teaching  of  Paul  about  Faith 

1.  The  Revelation  of  Christ  to  Him 

2.  His  Discovery  of  Faith    . 

3.  His  Battle  for  the  New  Truth     . 

(1)  His  First  Defence  :  Experience 

(2)  His  Second  Defence  :  Abraham 

(3)  His  Third  Defence :  The  Nature  of  Grace 

III.  The  Teaching  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 

1.  The  Perplexity  of  Hebrew  Christians 

2.  The  Definition  of  Faith   . 

3.  The  Abiding  Substance  of  the  Old  Testament 

4.  The  Supreme  Faith 

IV.  General  Considerations     . 

1.  The  Psychology  of  Faith 

2.  The  Place  of  Faith  in  General  Experience 

3.  Faith  in  the  ReHgious  History  of  Man    . 

4.  Faith  and  Creeds 
6.  Faith  and  Mysticism 
6.  The  Principle  of  Faith  as  Universal 

—  xiii  — 


168 

169 
169 
170 
171 
171 

172 
173 
174 
175 
176 
177 
178 

180 
180 
182 
182 
183 

184 
184 
186 
189 
191 
193 
194 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  VITAL  MEANING  OF  THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  BIBLE 


Introductory      .           . 

PAGE 

.     196 

I.  The  Church  of  Christ       .... 

.    198 

1.  The  Outward  Form         .... 

.     198 

(1)  The  essential  functions 

.    201 

(2)  The  seat  of  continuity 

.     201 

2.  The  Church  in  the  World 

.    203 

(1)  The  New  Race        .... 

.    203 

(2)  The  Priesthood  of  the  Church 

.     203 

3.  The  Church  and  Social  Institutions 

.    207 

(1)  The  Source  of  its  Ethical  Influence 

.     208 

(2)  Conditions  of  Membership  as  Ethical  Forces 

.     209 

(a)  Equality  of  BeUevers 

.     209 

(6)  The  Appeal  to  Intelligence 

.     210 

(c)  Mutual  Love,  and  Respect  for  Man     . 

.     212 

II.  The  Bible     ...... 

.    214 

1.  The  Original  Relations  of  Church  and  Bible 

.    217 

2.  The  unique  Authority  of  the  Bible 

.     219 

3.  The  Witness  of  the  Spirit 

.    220 

CHAPTER  IX 

THE  MISSIONARY  IMPULSE 

Introductory      .           . 

.    222 

I.  The  Propagation  of  Life  .... 

.     223 

II.  Loyalty  to  Cttrtst             .... 

.    225 

1.  The  Purpose  of  Christ     .... 

.    225 

2.  The  Cross             ..... 

.    226 

3.  His  Great  Command       .... 

.     227 

III.  The  Nature  of  Christian  Experience    . 

.     229 

1.  The  Gospel  a  Social  Fact 

.     229 

2,  The  Inner  Meaning  of  Mercy 

.    230 

XIV   — 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


IV.  The  World  and  its  Need 

PAGB 

.     232 

1.  The  Meaning  of  Humanity 

.     232 

(1)  One  Race    .... 

.     233 

(2)  The  Revealed  Destiny 

.     234 

(a)  Christ's  Love  of  Man   . 

.     235 

(6)  The  Value  of  a  Soul     . 

.     236 

2.  The  Dreadful  Need  of  Humanity 

.    237 

3.  The  Doom  of  Impenitence 

.    239 

Pinal  Words 

1.  Pity  and  Indebtedness    .            .            .            . 

.    241 

2.  The  Ultimate  Reality     .            .            .            . 

.     241 

—  XV  — 


"If  Nature  is  practically  trustworthy,  and  fit  to  be  scientifically 
reasoned  about,  the  Omnipotent  Spirit  immanent  in  it  must  be 
perfectly  good  and  design  the  goodness  of  all.  This  is  final 
faith." — Professor  A.  Campbell  Feasee,  D.C.L. 


—   XVI 


THE    FINAL    FAITH 


CHAPTER   I 

THE  THEEE  MISSIONARY  RELIGIONS 

/CHRISTIANITY  occupies  in  the  twentieth  century  a 
^^  relation  to  the  whole  world  strikingly  similar  to 
that  which  it  occupied,  during  the  first  three  centuries  of 
its  history,  towards  the  Roman  Empire.  In  none  of  the 
leading  nations  is  the  Christian  faith  forced  upon  the 
formal  or  outward  acceptance  of  their  citizens  by  the 
authority  of  the  State.  In  one  of  them  at  least,  namely, 
France,  there  is  something  like  a  return  to  the  hostile 
and  persecuting  attitude  of  ancient  Rome.  The  Church 
faces  the  world  to-day  with  a  fresh  and  solemn  con- 
sciousness not  only  of  its  divine  mission,  but  also  of  its 
dependence  for  success  upon  the  sole  authority  of  the 
truth  by  which  it  Uves,  and  upon  the  power  of  that  Spirit 
of  God  through  which  Christ  rules  the  hearts  of  men. 
Even  its  use  of  the  Bible,  which  it  beheves  to  be  the 
Word  of  God  and  the  vessel  of  truth,  has  been  made  by 
modern  methods  of  study  to  resemble  the  use  made  by 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

the  early  Church  of  the  witness  of  the  Apostles,  when  as 
yet  the  New  Testament  had  not  been  gathered  into  a 
canon. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  progress  of  missionary  work 
during  the  nineteenth  century,  combined  with  the 
scholarly  investigation  of  the  rehgions  of  the  world,  has 
opened  the  eyes  of  devout  Christians  to  facts  which  were 
not  known  a  hundred  years  ago,  but  were  more  familiar 
in  the  first  century.  The  early  Christians  Hved  in  the 
midst  of  heathenism.  They  were  surrounded  not  only 
by  its  monstrous  evils,  but  by  evidences  of  the  power  of 
a  true  religious  spirit  even  when  working  amid  degraded 
behefs  and  practices.  They  knew  many  non-Christians 
who  were  not  corrupt  in  life,  some  who  cherished  virtue 
and  were  "  feehng  after  God  if  haply  they  might  find 
Him"  (Acts  xvii.  26-28;  Rom.  ii.  6-16).  They  recognised 
in  certain  forms  of  religious  thought  the  outworking  of 
that  long-hidden  light  of  the  world  which  had  appeared 
fully  and  gloriously  in  the  Person  of  Jesus  Christ  (John 
i.  9,  10).  We  have  come  back  to  something  Hke  this 
standpoint.  We  recognise  in  the  universal  fact  of 
religion  a  witness  to  man's  essential  nature  as  a  spiritual 
being.  We  recognise  in  the  nobler  movements  of  his 
spirit  a  proof  that  he  has  not  been  deserted  of  God,  but 
that  everywhere  and  always  the  Divine  Spirit  has  been 
concerned  with  the  production  in  his  moral  and  religious 
experience  of  whatsoever  things  are  true  and  honourable, 
just  and  good,  lovely  and  of  good  report. 

Nevertheless  the  Church  of  Christ,  while  fair  to  the 


THE  THREE  MISSIONARY  RELIGIONS 

truth  in  all  religions,  cannot  be  true  to  its  origin  and  its 
nature,  to  that  very  faith  which  holds  it  living  to-day, 
without  the  conviction  that  in  the  message  of  Christ's 
gospel  and  there  alone  is  the  secret  of  salvation  dis- 
closed to  all  mankind.  Christianity  has  from  the  very 
first  claimed  to  be  the  supreme  power  of  God  for  the 
saving  of  souls  and  the  perfecting  of  human  nature. 
When,  therefore,  the  earnest  Christian  behever  studies  the 
missionary  situation  of  to-day,  he  is  brought  in  the  sure 
course  of  thought  to  ask  himself  why  the  Spirit  of  Christ 
demands  of  him  the  surrender  of  hfe  and  means  to  the 
cause  of  missions,  and  the  obedience  of  all  nations. 
Behind  all  these  fascinating  biographies  of  mission- 
aries, behind  the  story  of  the  great  missionary  societies 
and  of  their  triumph  in  many  lands  and  of  their 
ill-success  in  others,  there  must  be  some  field  of  study 
which  will  account  for  it  all.  The  missionary  student 
therefore  desires  something  more  systematic  in  his  under- 
standing of  Christianity  as  truth.  He  wishes  to  know  the 
real  grounds  for  the  claim  of  this  faith  that  it  must 
exercise  supreme  moral  and  spiritual  authority  over  all 
minds  and  all  consciences  throughout  the  world,  and  to 
the  very  end  of  time.  It  is  only  when  these  deep,  inner 
reasons  for  the  absolute  and  universal  nature  of  the 
Christian  religion  have  been  deeply  and  inwardly 
grasped  that  missionary  fervour  will  break  out  into  a 
great  flame  of  generous,  intelligent,  yet  passionate  and 
sacrificial  service. 

It  is  in  pursuit  of  this  result  that  the  following  studies 
—  3  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

of  Christian  truth  have  been  prepared.  But  we  must 
remember  our  day  and  the  air  we  breathe.  Therefore 
we  must  begin  our  study  by  connecting  the  Christian 
reUgion  with  the  fact  of  rehgion  in  general,  as  a  universal 
human  instinct ;  and  especially  we  must  take  account  of 
those  religions  which  have,  like  Christianity,  made  some 
claim  to  finahty,  and  have  for  that  reason  sought  to  win 
the  world  to  themselves. 


I.  The  Rise  of  Missionary  Religions 

1.  Religion. — Modern  research  has  made  it  clear  that 

reUgion  is  as  real  a  product  of  human  nature  as  language. 

It  is  as  natural  to  worship  as  to  speak.     This  has  been 

abundantly  proved  by  such  facts  as  these  :  that  rehgious 

phenomena  are  universal  in  the  history  of  man,  that  they 

accompany  every  kind  and  grade  of  social  organisation, 

that  they  have  been  always  closely  connected  with  and 

have  been  ever  regarded  as  sustaining  those  forms  of 

conduct  which  were  essential  to  the  structure  of  society, 

that  they  always  express  in  some  more  or  less  systematic 

way  the  highest  explanation  which  has  been  reached 

of  the  meaning  of  human  Hfe  and  the  destiny  of  men. 

Even  the  poorest  rehgion  of  the  poorest  savages  represents 

their  thought  about  the  supreme  powers  which  control 

the  fortunes  of  their  tribe  and  the  kind  of  tribal  conduct 

which    those    powers    punish    or    reward.     Rehgion    is 

therefore  the  inevitable  result  of  that  intelligence  with 

which  man  is  endowed,  and  which  he  brings  to  bear  not 

_-  4  — 


THE  THREE  MISSIONARY  RELIGIONS 

only  upon  the  momentary  exigencies,  but  the  general 
meaning  and  final  outcome  of  our  life.  Its  origin  is  as 
far  back  as  all  the  fundamental  acts  of  the  human  con- 
sciousness, its  course  is  intertwined  with  the  whole  varied 
history  of  man,  and  its  final  form  must  somehow  be  bound 
up  with  that  consummation  towards  which  the  will  of 
God  is  directing  the  successive  generations. 

2.  The  Rise  of  Missionary  Religions. — It  is  a  remark- 
able fact  that  while  every  race  and  tribe  has  possessed 
rehgious  beliefs  and  engaged  in  religious  practices,  only 
three  religions  have  appeared  which  engaged  in  deliberate, 
organised,  and  persistent  missionary  labour.  Some  races 
have  held,  indeed,  certain  ideas  in  common  and  developed 
similar  forms  of  worship ;  but  this  has  been  due  either 
to  a  common  inheritance  or  to  the  force  of  imitation, 
and  not  to  the  missionary  spirit.  Some  religions,  again, 
like  Brahmanism  in  its  earliest  descent  upon  South  India, 
like  Judaism  in  the  times  of  Christ,  and  Mithraism  at  a 
later  date,  have  felt  a  temporary  wave  of  this  enthusiasm; 
but  in  such  cases  it  has  been  only  partial  in  its  concep- 
tion and  has  been  speedily  steriHsed  by  mightier  move- 
ments. In  fact,  it  has  ever  been  recognised,  except  in 
these  three  cases,  that  each  people  should  have  its  own 
gods  (or  god)  who  presided  over  its  fortunes  and  identi- 
fied themselves  with  its  life.  Every  reader  of  the  Old 
Testament  is  famihar  with  the  fact  that  in  early  times  in 
Israel  the  mass  of  the  people  regarded  Jehovah  as  their 
God  in  exactly  the  same  sense  as  Chemosh  was  God  of 
Moab.     On  the  other  hand,  certain  great  objects,  such  as 

—  5  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

the  sun  and  the  moon,  and  natural  processes  such  as  the 
seasons  and  the  principle  of  reproduction,  have  been 
worshipped  by  many  races,  being  connected  with  deities 
who  resided  in  or  presided  over  and  directed  them. 
But  the  worship  of  these  great  powers,  while  widely  ex- 
tended in  East  and  West,  did  not  destroy  the  worship 
of  national  or  clan  deities.  Manifestly  there  could  be  no 
place  for  missionary  work  under  such  conditions.  In 
one  way  a  heathen  cult  might  be  spread.  For,  when 
deities  were  looked  upon  as  national,  their  glory  was 
regarded  as  bound  up  with  the  growth  and  prosperity  of 
their  favoured  people.  Hence  armies  were  roused  to  a 
white-heat  of  devotion  by  the  idea  that  their  gods  were 
spectators  of  the  strife,  and  that  more  than  human  honour 
was  at  stake  in  their  triumph  or  their  defeat ;  and 
conquered  races  bowed  before  the  gods  of  their  con- 
querors, thus  swelling  the  numbers  of  their  worshippers. 
In  this  manner,  no  doubt,  a  reHgion  may  be  said  to  have 
been  extended. 

But  the  true  missionary  religion  is  of  another  type 
altogether.  It  is  propagated  from  one  race  to  another, 
becomes  really  international,  in  a  manner  entirely  new. 
Such  a  religion  can  only  be  spread  because  its  believers 
find  in  it  a  supreme  good  not  only  for  their  own  but  for 
all  peoples,  and  feel  in  their  hearts  an  inward  compulsion, 
an  irresistible  necessity  to  go  forth  as  its  heralds  to  all 
the  world.  They  are  not  working  for  the  glory  of  their 
nation,  any  more  than  they  are  working  for  their  own 

personal  advancement  or  enrichment  in  earthly  things. 

—  6  — 


THE  THREE  MISSIONARY  RELIGIONS 

A  missionary  religion  is  one  which  is  fitted  to  become  the 
supreme  end,  the  absorbing  enthusiasm  of  strong  and 
vigorous  natures,  who  surrender  their  lives  to  its  claims, 
and  who  are  convinced  that  no  better  thing  can  happen  to 
all  men  than  that  they  should  all  make  the  same  surrender 
and  experience  the  same  glorious  and  absolute  obliga- 
tions. It  carries  with  it,  therefore,  a  new  view  of  man,  in 
which  racial  and  national  distinctions  give  way  to  some- 
thing wider  and  deeper.  It  reveals  some  doctrine  of 
man  which  compels  him  who  really  beheves  it  to  regard 
every  human  being  with  a  new  interest.  It  teaches  him 
to  see  the  highest  as  well  as  the  lowest  of  our  race  in  the 
light  of  a  great  and  commanding  hope,  stretching  beyond 
mere  temporal  achievements.  It  plants  in  his  breast  the 
fire  of  that  hope  for  himself,  and  also  a  strange  new  fire 
more  sacred  than  any  which  priests  have  lit  and  conserved 
on  .any  altar  :  the  burning  desire  and  the  set  will  to  kindle 
it  in  other  men  smjwhere,  everywhere. 

In  the  language  of  our  day,  it  must  be  said  that  the 
rise  of  the  missionary  impulse  marks  one  of  the  greatest 
stages  in  the  evolution  of  humanity.  It  means  that  the 
spirit  of  man  has  been  released  from  some  more  of  the 
bonds  which  held  it  captive  to  the  merely  individual, 
local,  temporal,  brutal  instincts  and  endeavours.  The 
long  journey  towards  the  kingdom  of  the  divine  Ufe  has 
entered  upon  a  new  phase.  The  reality  and  glory  of  the 
universal  spirit  of  man  has  come  into  view,  and  its  life  has 
become  the  one  supreme  good,  its  fulfilment  in  all  souls 
the  one  fascinating  pursuit  of  elect  souls.     God's  great 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

work  of  creating  a  kingdom  of  pure  intelligences  has 
begun  to  appear  before  the  eyes  of  these  pioneers  of 
humanity,  the  seers  and  leaders  of  the  race  ;  and  they 
have  entered  upon  the  sublime  task  which  without  their 
vision  and  their  will  cannot  be  fulfilled. 

3.  The  three  Missionary  Religions. — Sometimes  men 
write  as  if  the  universalism  of  a  reUgion,  the  quality  which 
makes  it  a  missionary  reUgion,  were  accidental,  dependent 
perhaps  upon  some  words  of  its  founder  or  some  phase  of 
thought  among  his  followers.  For  example,  search  has 
been  made  in  the  gospels  for  words  or  acts  of  our  Lord 
which  affirm  this  quality  of  His  gospel.  Likewise  some 
have  tried  to  account  for  the  wide  influence  of  Buddhism, 
its  claim  to  be  a  world  religion,  from  the  sympathy,  the 
generous  spirit  of  the  great  man  who  first  promoted  its 
principles.  But  such  a  view  of  the  matter  is,  at  least, 
inadequate.  A  reUgion  becomes  a  missionary  religion,  it 
attracts  believers  of  various  races,  it  drives  its  preachers 
forth  to  various  climes,  because  it  contains  certain 
doctrines,  it  deals  with  certain  facts,  it  aims  at  certain 
results  in  which  all  men  are  believed  to  be  deeply  con- 
cerned. It  is  a  mournful  fact  that  only  three  religions 
have  arisen  in  the  whole  history  of  man  which  have 
reached  this  high  view-point,  and  which  possess,  there- 
fore, such  qualities  as  to  quicken  in  their  adherents 
this  missionary  impulse.  These  three  are  Buddhism, 
Mohammedanism,  and  Christianity.  In  the  world 
to-day  they  alone  are  deliberately  competing  for  the 

faith  of  mankind.     Before  the  advance  at  least  of  the 

—  8  — 


THE  THREE  MISSIONARY  RELIGIONS 

last  two,  numerous  religions  have  been  swept  away. 
None  has  proved  strong  enough  to  offer  a  real  and 
prolonged  opposition.  Hence  it  is  generally  recognised 
that  the  supreme  struggle  Hes  between  these  three. 
Each  is  seeking  to  whet  its  weapons  against  the  other, 
each  is  planning  for  a  vast  campaign,  wisely  assimilating 
truth  from  its  opponent,  but  determined  also  to  identify 
and  expose  whatever  of  falsehood  it  teaches,  whatever 
of  evil  Ufe  it  engenders. 

The  spread  of  western  civilisation,  which  has  been 
so  deeply  moulded  by  Christianity,  is  carrying  with  it  one 
weapon,  which  is  proving  itself  most  powerful,  namely, 
western  science.  The  scientific  methods  of  investigating 
outward  nature  and  human  history  which  have  grown 
up  in  Christian  lands,  and  which  are  in  a  larger  measure 
than  many  reahse  the  product  of  the  Christian  spirit, 
are  rapidly  dissolving  the  power  of  the  mightiest  non- 
Christian  reUgions.  Apart  even  from  the  preaching  of 
the  gospel,  the  mind  of  the  heathen  world  is  being 
awakened  by  this  process  which  God  has  been  preparing 
for  long  centuries  in  Europe  and  America.  It  has 
begun  to  throw  off  the  shackles  which  bound  it  to  dark 
superstitions,  it  has  begun  to  grow  out  of  the  juvenile 
stage  when  it  caught  glorious  glimpses  of  half-truths  and 
treated  them  with  the  unpractical  enthusiasm  of  youth, 
as  the  final  meanings  of  Hfe.  That  mind  is  being  hurried 
with  almost  breathless  speed  to  make  the  awful  choice 
between  the  Christian  faith  and  a  world  from  which  all 
gods  have  vanished,  from  which  all  prospects  have  been 

—  9  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

shut  out  except  the  night  of  a  hopeless  death.  Christi- 
anity, as  "  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation,"  as  the 
historical  embodiment  of  God's  redemption  of  mankind 
and  His  final  self-revelation,  is  thus  destined  to  stand 
before  long  as  the  one  only  religion  offered  to  the  heart 
and  to  the  intelligence  of  mankind. 

II.  The  Oldest  Missionary  Religion  :  Buddhism 

Before  we  proceed  to  the  study  of  Christianity  as  the 
absolute  work  of  God's  grace,  and  therefore  as  the 
supreme  missionary  rehgion,  it  is  right  to  inquire  what 
elements  in  those  other  two  religions,  namely,  Buddhism 
g-nd  Mohammedanism,  have  given  them  even  for  a  time 
the  appearance  of  being  absolute  or  missionary  reUgions. 
What  have  the  founders  and  heralds  of  these  religions 
thought  that  they  could  do  for  mankind  which  was 
worthy  of  such  ardent  devotion  ?  And  first  we  must 
take  account  of  Buddhism. 

I.  The  Founder   of   Buddhism  and  his  Doctrine. — 

This  religion  arose  in  Northern  India  in  the  sixth  century 

before    Christ,  from    the    experience    and  teaching    of 

Gautama,  a  prince  who  at  the  age  of  twenty-nine  gave 

up  home  and  family,  wealth  and  power,  that  he  might 

discover  the  secret  of  the  blessed  Hfe,  and  spread  among 

his  fellow-men  the  good  news  which  he  had  discovered. 

To-day  his   religion,   although  it   has   vanished  in  its 

distinctive  form  from  India,  yet  holds  sway  over  vast 

multitudes  in  China,  Japan,  Ceylon,  and  Siam.    Gautama 

—   10  — 


THE  THREE  MISSIONARY  RELIGIONS 

was  wearied  of  the  formalities  and  corruptions  of  Brah- 
manism,  the  prevaihng  religion.  He  lost  faith  in  its 
gods,  its  ceremonies,  its  priests,  and  its  practical  moral 
influence.  There  was  just  one  of  its  fundamental 
teachings  which  he  did  not  get  rid  of,  namely,  its  doctrine 
of  reincarnation.  He  continued  to  believe  and  to  teach 
that  the  self  of  every  man  has  existed  in  countless  earUer 
forms,  and  is  destined  to  pass  on  into  yet  other  conditions 
of  Hfe.  The  new  form  which  selves  assume  at  each  death, 
or  at  each  passing  into  a  new  state  of  existence,  is  deter- 
mined by  the  kind  of  life  which  they  have  lived  in  the 
preceding  one.  Through  noble  life  a  nobler  life  may  be 
reached,  while  degraded  selves  inherit  in  the  new  state 
degraded  conditions.  Men  thus  find  themselves  in  a 
monstrous  "  wheel  "  of  existence  from  which  there  is  no 
ascertainable  escape.  In  an  endless  succession  of  lives 
they  have  been  pajang  the  penalty  of  blunders  and 
crimes  committed  in  some  forgotten  age  of  the  past, 
and  they  are  now  preparing  themselves  for  they  know 
not  what  better  or  worse  incarnation  when  their  brief 
and  bewildered  life  here  shall  end.  With  this  as  the 
background  of  thought,  Buddha,  the  Enlightened  One, 
as  he  came  to  be  called,  worked  out  his  own  spiritual 
experience,  and  from  that  drew  his  message  of  salvation. 
(1)  The  first  fact  before  him  was  this,  that  human  and 
indeed  universal  experience  was  full  of  suffering.  All 
animals  are  creatures  of  pain,  even  as  we.  (2)  But  if 
this  eternal    source    of    sorrow,   this  endless  chain  of 

successive  births  and  deaths,  with  wondering  and  woe 

—  II  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

between,  is  the  supreme  fact,  it  means  that  existence 

itself  is  the  supreme  evil.     If  we  know  of  no  path  by 

which  we  can  break  through  to  eternal  joy,  then  the 

only  deUverance  that  seems  rational  is  that  each  man 

should  seek  to  destroy  his  own  existence.     That  will  be 

Nirvana,  the  supreme  Rest  indeed.     (3)  Vulgar  suicide 

cannot  do  this.     That  only  hastens  a  man  into  the 

next  incarnation  by  a  criminal  act.     We  must  learn  to 

strike  at  and  destroy  the  very  root  of  existence  itself. 

Buddha  found  that  mysterious  and  baleful  root  to  be 

the  desire  for  existence,  the   "  will  to  live."     If  that 

desire  can  be  killed,  the  restless  life  which  springs  from 

it  will  end.     (4)  The  desire  for  existence  works  through 

or  expresses  itself  in  all  the  particular  appetites  and 

passions  of  our  nature.     If  these  could  only  be  attacked 

and  slain  in  detail,  the  root  from  which  they  spring 

would  perish. 

This  view  of  life's  problem  and  its  solution  was  no 

mere  speculative  process.     It  was  worked  out  in  the 

soul  of  Buddha  step  by  step  and  at  a  great  price.     He 

tried  one   way   after   another   which   famous   teachers 

pointed  out,  until  the  secret  was  disclosed  through  their 

failure  to  help  him  and  his  gradual  approach  to  the  only 

conclusion  which  seemed  possible.     He  practised  as  he 

thought.     He  disciplined  himseK  by  separation  from  all 

the  interests  and  responsibilities  of  that  high  station 

in  life  into  which  he  had  been  born.     When  he  found 

in  his  own  soul  the  passions  quelled,  the  very  love  of 

life  dead,  a  wonderful  light  seemed  to  shine  upon  his 

—   12  — 


THE  THREE  MISSIONARY  RELIGIONS 

soul.  He  became  "  Enlightened,"  at  peace,  waiting 
with  meditative  calm  for  that  final  release  when  death 
should  come  and  he  who  loved  not  Ufe  should  lose  its 
burden.  To  be  sure  of  that  was  to  be  at  rest.  And  he 
practised  ere  he  taught.  But,  when  he  had  learned  this 
way  of  salvation,  he  could  not  resist  the  impulse  to  call 
others  to  enter  upon  it.  He  found  and  trained  a  band 
of  disciples,  whom  he  required  to  separate  themselves 
as  he  had  done  from  the  world  of  human  affairs,  and  to 
pursue  the  path  which  he  had  opened  up.  The  societies 
of  monks  and  nuns  which  he  formed  were  pledged  to  a 
life  of  self-denial,  of  chastity,  of  profound  and  habitual 
meditation.  They  were  taught  and  became  teachers 
of  his  four  noble  truths,  including  the  "  eightfold  path  " 
of  deliverance.  The  ideal  state  which  he  thus  set 
before  his  followers  was  recognised  as  possible  in  this 
life  only  for  a  few.  But  the  masses  of  men  who  were 
not  strong  enough  to  enter  upon  its  full  demands  must 
be  called  and  trained  into  sympathy  with  it.  They  must 
learn  to  practise,  as  far  as  was  compatible  with  the 
maintenance  of  the  ordinary  relations  of  Hfe,  self-restraint 
in  all  appetites,  pity  for  all  living  things,  the  pursuit 
of  truth,  humility,  love,  and  purity.  They  would  thus 
do  something  to  ameliorate  their  next  state  of  existence 
and  make  it  easier  there  to  obtain  the  full  enlightenment. 
According  to  the  traditions  preserved  by  his  followers, 
Buddha  had  no  teaching  about  God.  He  had  lost  faith 
ahke  in  the  doctrine  of  Brahma  and  in  all  the  innumer- 
able   gods    and   goddesses    of    his    fellow-countrymen. 

—  13  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

But  in  the  strange  revenge  of  time,  rather  through  the 
invincible  appetite  of  the  human  consciousness  for  the 
divine,  his  followers  came  to  regard  him  as  one  who  was 
a  man  indeed,  but  who  embodied  and  represented  the 
universal  ideal,  which  is  also  eternal  and  omnipotent. 
His  high  personal  quahties  became  for  them  a  kind  of 
incarnation  of  the  absolute  goodness.  This  faith  in  him, 
always  vague  and  mystical,  was  yet  something  higher 
than  the  minds  of  men  had  reached  in  these  Orient  lands. 
Along  with  his  definite  instruction  and  rules  of  life  this 
conception  of  his  person  preserved  the  feehng  of  relation- 
ship with  him  from  one  generation  to  another,  and  he 
became  the  Fountain  of  Light,  the  Lord  of  Life  for 
multitudes  of  our  fellow-men. 

2.  The  Secret  of  its  Missionary  Power. — Buddhism 
seems  for  a  long  time  to  have  lost  its  power  to  elevate 
and  purify  human  society.  In  India  its  main  teachings 
were  long  ago  absorbed  by  Hinduism,  and  it  ceased  to 
exist  as  a  distinct  cult.  In  Ceylon,  China,  and  Japan  it 
is  widespread  but  inert,  formal,  corrupt.  Of  course,  its 
devotees  are  many  of  them  roused  to  fresh  zeal  and 
higher  aims  by  the  challenge  of  Christian  missions  and 
the  influence  of  Christian  truth.  But  Buddhism  has  no 
power,  as  Christianity  has,  of  self -recovery.  Christianity 
has  had  its  dark  ages,  its  lamentably  degraded  phases  of 
history.  And  yet  in  the  Bible,  that  constant  witness  to 
the  original  facts,  and  in  Christ's  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
it  possesses  the  secret  of  many  a  re-birth  and  the  assurance 

that  its  divine  mission  shall  without  fail  be  accomplished. 

—  14  — 


THE  THREE  MISSIONARY  RELIGIONS 

It  is  important  that  we  should  identify  and  ponder 
those  fundamental  beliefs  of  this  ancient  rehgion  which 
made  it  a  missionary  rehgion  and  gave  it  power  to 
console  and  inspire  and  in  many  cases  even  to  ennoble 
and  purify  the  sons  of  men.  They  may  be  briefly  re- 
capitulated as  follows  :  (a)  In  Buddliism  we  have 
presented  a  view  of  mankind  as  a  whole  in  its  natural 
state.  It  is  a  dismal  view,  but  it  is  true.  All  men  are 
heirs  of  sorrow,  are  doomed  to  suffer  and  to  die.  But 
in  this  religion  we  have  (6)  an  attempt,  which  is  founded 
upon  a  false  theory  of  the  cause  of  suffering,  to  discover 
the  way  of  salvation.  In  practice  this  "  way  "  was 
found  to  be  of  only  partial  appHcation.  But  at  least  it 
was  open  to  "  whosoever  will."  In  addition,  Buddhism 
had  two  other  quaHties  which  turned  these  dogmas 
into  weapons  of  spiritual  warfare,  and  quickened  the 
missionary  passion  in  many  hearts,  (c)  The  secret  of 
salvation  was  found  to  lie  in  the  realm  of  moral  character. 
Buddhism  was  the  first  purely  ethical  rehgion,  although 
profoundly  mistaken  in  its  fundamental  view  of  man's 
moral  nature.  In  the  region  of  purpose,  of  motive,  the 
real  centre  of  man's  being  was  found  to  he,  and  he  was 
commanded  if  he  would  reach  the  supreme  good  to  be 
himself  thoroughly  good.  Formahty  and  ceremony  were 
discovered  to  be  of  subordinate  value,  significant  only 
in  so  far  as  they  nourished  the  habits  and  temper  of  the 
soul  in  its  pursuit  of  sincerity,  kindness,  and  justice. 
(d)  This  whole  view  of  the  human  situation  arose  from  a 
great  soul  who  was  full  of  pity,  of  generous  impulse,  of 

—  15  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

humble  and  self-sacrificing  love  towards  the  vast  world 
which  seethed  in  woe  around  him.  His  disciples  could 
only  see  his  meaning  as  they  came  to  share  his  spirit. 
Thus  he  taught  them  to  become  openers  of  the  way  of 
peace  to  their  fellow-men.  They  were  missionaries 
because  one  who  was  full  of  pity  taught  them  to  have 
compassion  for  all  burdened  hearts  and  darkened  lives, 
and  to  give  to  others  the  secret  of  deliverance  which 
they  had  learned. 

III.  The  Youngest  Missionary  Religion  : 
Mohammedanism 

1.  Its  Founder. — The  founder  of  this  great  religion, 
Mohammed,  was  born  about  a.d.  570  at  Mecca  in  South 
Arabia.  He  began  life  amid  a  strange  ferment  of  political 
and  religious  conditions,  which  pervaded  the  whole  of 
that  region  with  disorder  and  unrest.  The  ancient 
paganism,  with  its  idols  and  star  worship,  had  fallen  into 
disrepute.  ReUgious  enthusiasts  were  numerous,  whose 
fervours,  asceticism,  and  wilfulness  at  once  increased 
disorder  and  indicated  the  birth  time  of  a  new  order. 
Such  persons  were  supposed  to  be  inspired  by  one  of  the 
Jinn,  spirit-beings  whom  the  Arabs  believed  to  be  in 
close  touch  with  human  Hfe.  Among  the  various  move- 
ments there  arose  a  class  known  as  "  converts,"  who 
beheved  in  the  existence  and  unity  of  God,  in  human 
responsibihty  and  in  the  judgment  to  come.     Mohammed 

belonged  to  this  class,  and  in  his  earlier  manhood  was 

—  \6  — 


THE  THREE  MISSIONARY  RELIGIONS 

sincere,  mystical,  self-sacrificing,  earnest.  He  became  an 
ardent  propagator  of  the  new  doctrine,  and  was  soon 
marked  out  as  its  leader  in  Mecca.  Feuds  arose  partly 
from  clan  jealousies,  but  were  fostered  into  new  intensity 
by  his  hatred  of  idolatry  and  insistence  on  a  purer  form 
of  worship.  He  was  driven  to  flight  and  took  refuge  in 
the  neighbouring  city  of  Medina,  a.d.  622.  This  became 
the  first  year  of  the  Mohammedan  era.  With  a  band  of 
followers  numbering  already  over  a  hundred  families 
he  preached  even  more  aggressively  than  before.  He 
pubUshed  from  time  to  time  revelations  which  he  avowed 
that  he  had  received  by  inspiration  of  God  through  the 
angel  Gabriel ;  and  he  claimed  from  his  disciples  absolute 
obedience  to  all  the  laws  and  practices  which  he  thus 
made  known  by  Divine  Authority.  Judaism  had  for 
long  been  strongly  represented  in  that  region,  and 
Mohammed  was  famiHar,  though  not  at  first  hand,  with 
the  traditional  accounts  of  the  Hebrew  patriarchs  ;  Jie 
knew  a  little  about  the  rest  of  the  Old  Testament  history, 
and  something  also  of  the  Jewish  code  of  morals.  Chris- 
tianity had  also  reached  that  part  of  the  world  towards 
the  end  of  the  sixth  century,  but  evidently  in  a  form 
which  failed  to  represent  its  full  strength  and  truth. 
But  Mohammed  knew  enough  of  Jesus  to  count  Him 
the  greatest  of  the  prophets  that  had  gone  before 
him. 

2.  Its  Fundamental  Doctrines. — The   religion  which 
Mohammed  founded  may  be  said  to  have  five  funda- 
mental  doctrines.     Each   of   these   has   contributed  to 
2  —  17  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

the  missionary  character  of  the  religion  and  the  zeal 
of  those  who  even  to-day  in  thousands  are  extending 
its  borders  in  Africa  and  the  East.  (1)  It  teaches  that 
Allah  (God)  is  one,  and  Mohammed  is  his  prophet.  Thus 
polytheism  and  idolatry  are  swept  away  at  one  stroke. 
(2)  The  whole  world  is  seen  in  its  complete  and  uncon- 
ditioned dependence  upon  the  creative  will  and  the 
complete,  minute,  and  constant  control  of  the  living 
and  personal  God.  (3)  Notwithstanding  its  insistence 
that  the  will  of  God  ordains  every  event  that  comes  to 
pass,  it  violently  escapes  pessimism  by  insisting  with 
equal  emphasis  upon  the  responsibiUty  of  man.  (4)  There 
is  one  law  of  God  for  all  men  which  has  been  at  last  and 
finally  made  known  by  Mohammed.  All  men  are  re- 
sponsible for  their  obedience  to  that  divine  will,  and  in 
a  future  life  will  receive  the  just  penalty  or  reward  for 
their  doings  in  this  life.  The  fundamental  law  is  that 
they  should  submit  absolutely  to  Him  and  His  prophet. 
This  submission  must  be  daily  expressed  and  confirmed 
in  the  constant  recital  of  the  creed  and  in  the  profound 
and  humble  act  of  prayer  which  is  required  at  fixed 
hours  five  times  a  day.  (5)  All  the  messages  of  God 
through  Mohammed  and  all  the  requirements  which  He 
makes  upon  man  are  recorded  in  the  Koran,  the  book 
in  which  the  scattered  pronouncements  of  the  prophet 
were  gathered  a  few  years  after  his  death.  Every  true 
believer  is  commanded  to  be  master  of  that  book  of 
revelation. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  there  is  much  important 

—  i8  — 


THE  THREE  MISSIONARY  RELIGIONS 

and  vital  truth  in  this  powerful  and  widespread  rehgion. 
Its  teachings  in  many  respects  resemble,  and  indeed 
were  derived  from,  the  Jewish  religion.  Nor  is  it  hard 
to  realise  that  when  it  comes  to  a  race  of  idolaters,  when 
it  wins  their  assent,  it  must  immediately  give  them 
nobler  conceptions  of  human  nature,  more  inspiring 
views  of  duty  and  destiny  than  any  which  they  possessed 
before.  Not  only  so,  but  they  find  themselves  roused  to 
missionary  enthusiasm  in  its  behalf.  Mohammed  himself 
required  with  the  utmost  vehemence  that  his  followers 
should  be  preachers  of  the  Word.  Great  rewards  were 
promised  to  those  who  should  be  zealous  in  spreading 
the  truth,  and  the  greatest  of  all  to  those  who  should 
die  in  battle  on  behalf  of  their  faith,  and  for  its  propa- 
gation among  unbehevers.  Of  himself  he  said  :  "  My 
sole  work  is  preaching  from  God  and  His  message."  He 
had  at  one  time  true  insight  into  the  true  missionary 
spirit  and  method.  "  Summon  them,"  he  said,  "  to  the 
way  of  thy  Lord  with  wisdom  and  with  kindly  warning  ; 
dispute  with  them  in  the  kindest  manner."  "  If  they 
accept  Islam,  they  are  guided  aright  ;  but  if  they  turn 
away,  then  thy  duty  is  only  preaching,  and  God's  eye 
is  on  His  servants."  Many  such  magnificent  passages 
occur  in  the  Koran,  and  they  seem  to  rest  on  the  con- 
sciences of  multitudes  of  Mohammedans  who  are  not 
engaged  in  formal  missionary  work. 

3.  The  Weakness  of  Mohammedanism. — Three  main 
defects  in  this  reHgion  may  be  named  here  in  closing, 

to  indicate  at  once    the  hmits  of  its  power  and  the 

—  19  — 


THE  PINAL  FAITH 

manner  in  which'  the  Christian  gospel  surpasses  and 
completes  the  measure  of  truth  which  it  undoubtedly  does 
possess.     In  the  first  place,  the  character  of  Mohammed 
himself  broke  down,  and  he  dared  to  claim  for  his  very- 
aberrations  the  sanction  of  the  will  of  God.     He  did 
this  as  to  his  practice  of  polygamy,  and  he  did  it  again 
as  to  the  use  of  the  sword  in  the  spread  of  the  faith. 
From  those  two  roots  have  sprung  and  flourished  the 
evils  which  most  obviously  characterise  the  Mohammedan 
world.     Where  it  spreads  it  tends  to  make  a  desert,  and 
where  it  dwells  in  cities  it  fails  to  raise  a  lofty  morality. 
It   strangely  combines    a   democratic    spirit — in   some 
respects  more  democratic  than  any  Christian  nation — 
with  submission  to  an  autocratic  form  of  government. 
The  mixed  character  of  its    great  prophet  makes  its 
social  ideals  mixed.     In  the  second  place,  its  appeal  to 
the  sword  both  sprang  from  and  preserves  a  superficial 
view  of  man's  relations  to  God  in  repentance  and  faith. 
And  lastly,  it  really  leaves  mankind  where  the  Jewish 
law  left  him,  condemned  and  unsaved.     Even  Mohammed 
waited  in  hope  that  his  sins  might  be  forgiven.     He 
was    no    Saviour,    and   his    reHgion   offers    none.     The 
expectation  of  bhss  which  his  followers  are  encouraged 
to  cherish  is  infinitely  different    in   its  basis  and  its 
nature  from  that  peace  of  God,  that   grace   of   God, 
that    assurance   of   pardon,    that   sense   of   inner   and 
actual  reconcihation  and   fellowship  with    God  Avhich 
is  the  first  and  supreme  boon  of   the  gospel  of  Jesus 

Christ. 

—  20  — 


THE  THREE  MISSIONARY  RELIGIONS 

What  we  of  the  Christian  faith  have  a  right  to  expect 
is  that,  as  the  character,  claims,  and  power  of  Mohammed 
are  studied  in  comparison  with  those  of  Christ,  it  will 
become  clear  that  even  Mohammed  needed  for  himself 
what  Christ  alone  has  been  able  to  bestow. 


21    — 


CHAPTER   II 

THE  RISE  OF  THE  FINAL  RELIGION 

TTTE  have  seen  how  two  missionary  rehgions,  Buddh- 
*  '  ism  and  Mohammedanism,  arose  ;  and  we  have 
briefly  described  those  characteristic  features  which  have 
given  them  their  great  power  over  large  portions  of  the 
human  race  and  for  many  centuries.  We  must  now 
turn  to  our  main  task,  to  discover  what  are  those  elements 
in  the  Christian  faith  which  convince  us  that  it  is 
destined  to  become  the  one  universal  religion  of  the 
human  race.  As  we  have  already  seen,  we  cannot  give 
the  reason  for  the  universal  quahty  of  a  reHgion,  nor 
explain  its  missionary  power,  without  describing  its 
nature  or  characteristic  doctrines.  Hence  we  must, 
in  order  to  appreciate  the  power  of  Christianity  or 
estimate  its  prospect  of  conquering  its  rivals  and  becom- 
ing the  only  positive  rehgion  in  the  world,  inquire  into 
its  fundamental  nature. 

I.  What  is  Meant  by  an  Absolute  or  Final 
Religion 

It  is  well   at   the   start   to    clear   up   one   matter 

which   proves   itself    a    difficulty   for   some   inquirers. 

—  22  — 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  FINAL  RELIGION 

Christianity  aims  at  becoming  the  universal  reUgion, 
because  it  is  the  absolute  and  final  religion.  Some 
shrink  from  the  use  of  these  words  because  they  seem 
to  claim  too  much,  which  is  arrogance  ;  or  at  any  rate 
to  shut  down  the  prospect  of  any  further  advance 
of  the  race,  which  is  despair. 

1.  Absolute. — About  the  former  word  "  absolute  "  it 
is  asked  how  we  can  apply  it  to  a  fact  or  a  complex 
system  of  facts  which  have  appeared  in  time.  How 
can  facts  or  experiences,  or  truths,  or  beUefs  which  are 
obviously  relative,  because  related  in  time  and  even  in 
space  to  other  facts  and  truths  and  beHefs,  be  correctly 
described  as  absolute  ?  Are  we  not  told  that  the 
Absolute  is  that  which  stands  outside  of  all  relations  ? 
It  would  be,  of  course,  impossible  to  enter  here  upon  a 
technical  discussion  of  the  metaphysical  problems  in- 
volved in  these  questions.  But  an  adequate  practical 
answer  may  be  found  in  the  two  following  considera- 
tions :  First,  the  gospel  is  said  to  be  absolute  because 
therein  God  Himself  is  revealed  in  direct  action  upon 
the  human  soul.  The  day  of  subordinate  mediators 
is  done  with.  Here  in  Christ,  here  in  the  experience 
of  personal  reconcihation  with  God,  it  is  the  Eternal 
and  Absolute  God  HimseK  who  has  entered  into  direct 
relations  with  mankind  and  with  the  individual  man. 
Second,  the  gospel  addresses  itself  to  that  in  man  which 
in  a  very  real  sense  partakes  of  the  absolute  ;  namely,  his 
conscience.  It  ignores  racial  distinctions  as  such.  It 
has  no  immediate  message  to  mere  intellectual  curiosity, 

—  23  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

and  no  exclusive  message  for  intellectual  superiority.  It 
penetrates  to  the  central  fact  in  man  as  a  moral  being, 
his  sense  of  responsibility.  It  confronts  him  with  duty 
which  is  infinite,  it  wrings  from  him  the  confession  of  a 
sin  which  he  cannot  measure  or  palliate  without  deepen- 
ing it.  It  reveals  to  him  a  mercy  which  he  must  and 
can  call  only  infinite  and  wholly  of  God,  if  it  is  to  become 
his  own.  In  this  direct  dealing  of  the  supreme  and 
holy  will  of  God  with  the  supreme  element  in  man's 
moral  nature  we  have  the  secret  of  the  absoluteness  of 
Christianity. 

2.  Final, — Then,  as  to  the  word  "  Finahty,"  we  are 
asked  whether  this  does  not  involve  the  doctrine  that 
revelation  is  closed,  that  man  can  make  no  further  pro- 
gress, that  the  generations  to  come  can  learn  nothing 
more  of  God  than  is  already  known.  Do  we  not  know 
more  of  God  and  His  ways  than  Paul  did  ?  Did  even 
John  with  his  piercing  insight  make  of  none  effect  all 
the  searchings  of  the  saints  that  have  followed  him  ? 
And  what  of  the  generations  to  come  ?  Are  they  to  re- 
ceive no  new  light  from  God  except  what  the  ApostoHc 
minds  received  ?  The  answer  to  these  questions  is  not 
very  difficult,  and  connects  itself  with  the  previous 
paragraph.  First,  Christianity  is  the  final  religion  be- 
cause no  higher  boon  can  be  conferred  on  man  than  that 
communion  with  God,  in  peace  and  love  and  service, 
which  it  alone  of  all  facts  in  history  has  been  able  to 
bestow,  in  a  form  capable  of  universal  dissemination. 
Second,   Christianity  is   the  final   religion,  because  all 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  FINAL  RELIGION 

further  progress  in  our  knowledge  of  God  and  His  ways 
must  be  based  upon  and  conditioned  by  the  saving 
power  of  Jesus  Christ.  Whatever  else  God  may  do  for 
the  race,  He  will  not  abolish  the  supreme  significance 
of  our  Lord.  Evolution  must  henceforth  flow  from 
Christ  as  a  fountain-head,  not  past  Him  as  an  incident 
in  time.  He  is  inwardly,  permanently  related  to  the 
whole  course  of  history,  to  the  conscience  and  the 
destiny  of  every  man,  to  the  character  and  growth  of 
all  nations.  There  is  much  concerning  God's  method 
of  dealing  with  the  race  which  only  the  course  of  time 
since  Christ  has  disclosed,  and  which  the  Apostles  could 
not  possibly  foresee.  There  are  truths  concerning  the 
relation  of  God  to  nature  also,  which  were  unknown  to 
them  and  have  become  famihar  to  later  generations. 
There  may  be  some  impHcations  of  their  own  words  con- 
cerning God  and  Christ,  the  Church  and  the  Sacraments, 
faith  and  salvation,  which  were  not  at  all  present  to  the 
minds  of  the  Apostles,  and  which  only  the  relentless  logic 
of  other  centuries  has  drawn  out  and  may  yet  bring  to 
light.  But  none  of  these  things  in  any  way  diminishes 
the  claim  that  Christianity  is  the  final  rehgion,  and 
therefore  destined  to  deHver  its  message  to  the  whole 
race  of  man.  Its  finahty  Hes  in  this,  that  henceforth 
only  through  Christ  and  His  Spirit  does  God  act 
upon  the  conscience  of  man,  and  the  history  of 
the  race  must  be  for  ever  conditioned  by  the  universal 
and   permanent    power   of   His   gospel.     The  influence 

of   the    Christ,    indwelHng    in    human    history,    is    an 

—  25  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

essential    constituent     of    the    entire    future    life    of 
humanity. 

II.  The  General  Mode  of  its  Foundation 

1.  The  Three  Stages. — We  referred  to  the  historical 
circumstances  amid  which  the  other  two  missionary- 
religions  arose,  and  we  must  do  the  same  with  Chris- 
tianity. As  it  lives  and  works  in  the  world,  and  has  done 
for  nineteen  centuries,  it  is  the  result  of  three  stages  in 
the  action  of  God  upon  the  field  of  human  nature.  First, 
we  have  the  preparative  revelation  in  and  through  Israel 
and  her  prophets.  Second,  we  have  the  coming  and  the 
manifestation  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  central,  creative  Fact. 
Third,  we  have  the  typical  consciousness  of  communion 
with  God  which  was  created  in  the  apostolic  circle  by 
the  Person  and  Work  of  Christ,  thus  making  the 
Christian  religion  an  actual  experience  and  giving 
it  a  permanent  place  in  human  history.  These 
three  stages  are  described  in  the  books  of  the  Bible, 
which  have  thus  naturally  and  irresistibly  become 
the  indispensable  means  of  preserving  for  the  Church 
and  the  world  a  true  knowledge  of  the  very  nature  of 
the  gospel,  of  the  actual  way  in  which  God  has  worked 
and  will  ever  work  upon  the  soul  of  man  in  all  its  rela- 
tions, for  salvation  in  all  its  kinds.  It  is  obvious  that 
Buddhism,  as  its  founder  taught  it,  having  an  agnostic 
or  even  atheistic  method  of  dealing  with  human  distress, 

falls  infinitely  short  of  the  sublime  Christian  doctrine 

—  26  — 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  FINAL  RELIGION 

that  God,  the  Eternal  and  Conscious  Will,  which  sustains 
and  directs  the  course  of  nature  and  of  man,  has  in  a 
definite  way  revealed  His  character  and  His  redemptive 
purpose  towards  man.  And  even  that  form  of  Buddhism 
which  transformed  its  founder  into  an  eternal  Being, 
long  after  his  death  and  without  any  basis  for  this  in 
his  own  consciousness  and  work,  has  only  as  it  were 
hypostatised  (or  treated  as  eternally  real)  that  human 
ideal  which  rose  to  view  in  his  teaching  and  his  character. 
It  is  obvious  that  Mohammedanism,  on  the  other  hand, 
does  not  get,  even  in  its  sacred  book,  the  Koran,  beyond 
the  first  of  the  three  stages  of  the  Christian  revelation. 
Mohammed  is  a  prophet,  the  authoritative  announcer  of 
the  divine  law,  the  exhorter  of  all  men  to  repent  and  obey 
that  law. 

But  in  Christianity,  as  constituted  through  the  three 
stages,  we  find  that  the  living  God  has  entered,  let  it  be 
triumphantly  said,  into  new  relations  with  the  Hfe  of 
man.  He  has,  as  it  were,  invaded  human  history,  from 
within  or  from  above,  as  you  hke  to  put  it.  The  pheno- 
mena cannot  be  explained  by  saying  merely  that  here 
the  human  striving  for  God  has  reached  a  higher  measure 
of  success  than  in  these  other  reHgions.  That  is  only  a 
part,  and  if  anything  is  here  less  than  anything  else, 
this  human  endeavour  is  the  lower  side  of  the  history. 
It  would  be  nothing  if  it  were  all.  The  vital  and  sur- 
passingly glorious  fact  is,  that  throughout  this  prolonged 
story  of  successive  forms  of  religious  experience  God 

always  appears  to  the  individuals,  who  are  at  once  its 

—  27  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

vessels  and  vehicles,  as  a  conscious  will,  a  personal  Being 

who  has  invaded  the  field  of  human  consciousness,  and 

is  dealing  with  communities  and  individuals  on  the  open 

plains  of  history. 

2.  Human  Need  and  Divine  Grace. — Moreover,  it  is 

of  the  utmost  importance  to  recognise  the  fact  that  in 

the   long   process   which   culminated   in   the   Christian 

reUgion,  men  have  learned  on  the  one  hand  the  fulness 

and  reaUty  of  the  Divine  character  and  will,  and  on  the 

other  hand  the  depth  and  extent  of  the  human  need. 

The  two  processes  are  correlative  ;    the  one  form  of 

knowledge  has  grown  with  the  other.     The  human  need 

of  God  has  been  variously  understood  by  the  religions 

of  the  world.     To  the  primitive  worshipper  it  may  be 

summed  up  in  the  word  "  protection."     Aware  of  the 

innumerable  foes  which  threaten  happiness  and  human 

life,  men  looked  at  these  and  measured  them  in  external 

terms.     Long  Hfe   and  prosperity,   security  from   foes 

who   threatened   them,    victory   in   war   and   physical 

content  in  times   of   peace,   these   were   the  blessings 

expected  from  the  gods,  the  region  of  the  Divine.     The 

brooding  Oriental  mind  penetrated  to  a  deeper  need  in 

the  great  discovery  that  ultimate  reality  is  to  be  found 

in  the  realm  of  the  spirit.      All  that  appears  to  and 

is  apprehended  through  the  senses  is  ephemeral.      It 

is  in  the  inner  region  of  the  soul's  life  alone  that  the 

permanent    is    to    be    found.     Hence    the    passionate 

hunger  of  the  Hindu  mystic  for  union  with  that  One 

ultimate  Being  on  which  all  things  rest,  or  that  inner 

—  28  — 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  FINAL  RELIGION 

Principle  or  Being  of  which  the  visible  universe  is  but 
the  changing  and  uncertain  and  even  deceptive  shadow. 
The  reabsorption  by  Hinduism  of  the  Buddhist's  deeper 
insight  into  man's  need  of  moral  renovation  prevented 
the  East  from  reaching  the  deepest  view  of  all.  That 
came  in  the  prophetic  education  of  Israel.  There  it 
gradually  grew  clear  at  least  to  the  noblest  souls,  that 
man's  inmost  and  final  need  is  a  personal  and  moral 
harmony  with  the  character  and  will  of  the  living  God. 
This  discovery  does  not  deny  the  earlier  stages.  It 
carries  them  with  it  into  the  highest  realms  of  the  truth. 
For  the  living  God  is  the  providential  will  which  directs 
and  controls  the  events  of  the  world,  and  is  also  the  under- 
lying reality  of  which  all  else  is  the  expression,  the  one 
undying  and  changeless  fact  amid  all  the  flux  of  the 
ages.  And  man  does  need  the  protection  of  that  will, 
does  need  to  reach  the  sense  of  union  with  that  ultimate 
and  all-pervasive  reahty.  But  at  last  it  has  become 
clear  that  man  needs  first  of  all  to  be  dealt  with  in 
respect  of  his  moral  relations  to  that  Reality  which  is  a 
conscious  and  holy  will,  by  that  very  Being  Himself 
who  is  the  living  and  eternal  God.  That  is  what 
prophetism  in  Israel  taught,  that  is  what  God  did  for 
man  in  Christ,  that  is  what  the  Apostolic  consciousness 
realised  in  the  first  full  rush  of  the  accompHshed  fact 
upon  human  experience. 

We    must     now    briefly    describe    the    three    stages 
by    which     this     rehgious    view    became     established 

among    men   and    took    shape    as    the    absolute    and 

—  29  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

final    and   universal   rule   of    man's   relationship  with 
God. 


III.  The  First  Stage  :  Prophetic  Revelation 

In  the  first  place,  we  have  the  revelation  in  the  religion 
of  Israel. — It  is  difficult  to  summarise  this  in  a  few 
paragraphs,  because  modern  scholarship  has  made  us 
so  sensitive  to  the  various  influences  which  acted  upon 
Hebrew  life  and  thought,  and  even  upon  the  rehgious 
practices  of  the  people,  from  first  to  last.  Also,  we 
now  recognise  the  divergent  standpoints  of  the  various 
periods  of  Hebrew  history,  and  of  the  great  teachers 
whom  God  sent  each  with  his  own  flash  of  reveahng 
truth.  We  are  still  further  aware  that  a  great  deal 
of  most  important  work  was  done  upon  the  religious 
conceptions  and  hopes  of  the  Jews  which  is  not  described 
in  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament.  Jesus  undoubtedly 
grew  up  among  a  people  whose  religious  spirit  and 
theological  outlook  were  influenced  by  many  beliefs 
and  national  experiences  which  receive  little  direct 
illustration  in  the  received  canon  of  Jewish  Scriptures. 
In  spite  of  these  acknowledged  and  great  difficulties, 
we  may  select  the  following  set  of  facts  as  of  vital  im- 
portance for  the  purposes  of  this  study. 

1.  Monotheism. — The    course    of    religious    life    and 

thought   which   began   with    Moses    became   gradually 

defined  as  Monotheism,  or  the  beUef  in  one  living  God, 

the  Creator  of  the  visible  and  invisible  universe,  the 

—  30  — 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  FINAL  RELIGION 

Supreme  Lord  of  all  nations,  to  whom  all  men  are 
responsible.  Although  this  idea  is  nowhere  formally 
defined,  or  systematically  expounded,  or  philosophically 
defended,  there  is  no  doubt  that  from  the  days  of 
Jeremiah  it  was  the  prevaihng  conception  of  God  in 
Israel.  Nowhere  else  in  the  pre-Christian  world  was 
Monotheism  fully  and  actually  achieved.  Among  the 
Hebrews  this  knowledge  of  God  grew  through  a  long 
process  of  national  instruction  and  discipHne.  And  yet 
it  did  not  merely  grow  as  if,  sown  deep  in  the  original 
soil  of  that  Semitic  nation,  there  were  ideas  which  could 
produce  this  and  only  this  splendid  fruitage.  It  was 
produced,  all  Hebrews  and  all  Christians  have  beHeved, 
and  our  Lord  HimseK  taught, — it  was  produced  by 
the  specific  action  of  God  upon  the  life  of  that  people. 
In  Moses  and  in  all  the  great  prophets  of  subsequent 
centuries  there  was  a  consciousness  of  inward  and 
personal  contact  with  Jehovah.  This  experience  was  so 
deep  and  real,  so  illuminating  and  authoritative,  that 
it  gave  them  the  right  to  say  to  the  people,  "  Thus  saith 
Jehovah,"  when  they  delivered  their  message.  And 
this  vivid  experience  of  the  indwelling  spirit  of  Jehovah 
was,  again,  so  truly  not  of  man  but  of  God  Himself, 
that  it  became  through  long  centuries,  in  far  separated 
generations,  even  through  most  diverse  conditions  of 
national  Ufe  and  character,  a  continuous  process  of 
revelation.  It  is  a  long  unfolding  of  the  loftiest  ideas 
ever  formed  in  the  mind  of  man,  which  has  at  its  very 
heart,  as  the  invisible  spring  of  each  new  moment  of  in- 

—  31  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

sight,  of  each  new  and  vigorous  mental  achievement,  the 

invincible  sense  of  personal  contact  with  God  Himself, 

and  of  God's  living  action  upon  the  heart  of  the  prophet. 

There  are  two  facts  about  God  belonging  to  the  deep 

centre  of  this  stream  of  revelation  which  must  be  here 

briefly  set  down. 

In    the    first    place,    Jehovah,    the    Lord   of   all,   is 

known  as  ineffable  and  supreme  in  His  holiness  and 

righteousness.     He  is  not    removed  from  the  material 

universe,  for  He  sustains  and  controls  all  its  mighty 

and  glorious  powers.     It  is  no  deceptive  shadow  cast 

upon  His  glory.     It  is  the  robe  of  beauty  which  He 

wears.     It  is  a  majestic  array  of  powers,  every  one  of 

which  is  but  a  quick  sensitive  servant  of  His  will.     Nor 

is  He  cut  off  from  human  Hfe.     The  children  of  men 

are  no  less  His  creatures  than  the  sun  and  the  moon 

in  their  splendour.     Nay,  they  too   are  His  servants, 

wherever  they  live  and  whatever  false  or  unreal  gods 

in  their  pathetic   ignorance   or  bestial  sin  they  may 

worship.     But  in  His  holiness  and  righteousness  Jehovah 

recognises  one  fact  which  is  utterly  hostile  to  His  nature. 

His  character  and  His  will, — that  is  human  sin.     Here 

prophetism  speaks  a  most  terrible  message.     Nothing 

further  can  it  say  until   the   bitter  fact  is  fully  and 

humbly  recognised  by  men,  that  in  one  only  spot  has 

God  no  place,  that  is  in  the  heart  of  the  evil-doer.     For 

God  is  holy  and  righteous,  and  His  attitude  towards  the 

unholy  and  unrighteous  will  is  and  must  be  one  of 

inexorable  and  complete  hostiUty. 

—  32  — 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  FINAL  RELIGION 

In  the  second  place,  there  was  found  stirring  in  the 
earhest  prophetic  message  a  note  which  grew  richer  and 
fuller  as  the  centuries  flowed  on.  For  if  God  is  the 
living  source  and  ruler  of  all,  His  eye  cannot  be  fixed 
only  on  the  past  and  the  present.  He  is  a  God  in 
whom  men  may  find  something  more  than  a  mere  task- 
master for  each  day.  All  the  future  is  the  region  of 
His  thought  and  action,  as  well  as  the  ages  that  have 
vanished  (at  least  for  the  children  of  time)  and  the 
present  which  stretches  wide  fields  before  Him.  For 
the  first  time  there  arose  a  religion  for  which  the  future 
is  an  actual  source  of  joy,  the  limitless,  ever  unfolding, 
never  exhausted  country  of  hope.  God  is  a  being  of 
purpose.  His  will  foreplans  and  His  heart  foresees. 
The  years  of  our  life  flow  to  us  like  a  river  from  beneath 
His  throne, 

Now,  if  this  fact  in  God  were  abruptly  united 
with  the  fact  of  His  holy  and  righteous  character, 
of  His  fierce  and  burning  reaction  against  moral  evil 
seated  in  the  human  will,  a  despair  would  settle  on 
man's  mind  more  terrible  than  that  which  gave  birth  to 
the  passive  pessimism  of  the  Hindu.  For  it  is  harder  to 
face  a  holy  will  that  dehberately  and  rightly  condemns 
you,  than  a  blind  universal  fate  that  merely  grinds 
you.  To  the  latter  you  present  the  sullen  humilia- 
tion of  an  indignant  soul  that  feels  itseK  superior 
to  its  crushing  foe.  To  the  former  you  must  bow 
in  a  humiliation  whose  agony  is  infinite,  since  both 
shame  and  defeat,  both  the  sense  of  guilt  and  the 
3  —  33  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

despair  of  deliverance  play  upon  one  another  with 
terrific  and  unescapable  power  in  the  depth  of  the  soul. 
Israel  was  saved  from  this  supreme  misery,  though 
often  dragged  close  to  it,  by  the  steady,  age-long,  pro- 
phetic assurance  that  Jehovah  had  pledged  Himself, 
had  bound  Himself  in  an  everlasting  covenant,  never  to 
forsake  His  people.  The  greatest  discovery  ever  made  up 
to  that  time  by  the  human  mind  came  as  a  double  revela- 
tion, through  prophet  after  prophet,  that  a  nation's  sin 
was  its  mightiest  foe,  but  that  God  Himself,  against  whom 
the  sin  was  directed,  would  prove  mightier  still,  in  a  pure 
and  cleansing  mercy.  Thus  arose  the  vision  and  worship 
of  One  whose  very  rectitude  was  the  fountain  of  His  pity, 
whose  mercy  as  well  as  His  righteousness  endureth  for 
ever. 

2.  The  Messianic  Hope. — But  if  God  is  the  God  of  the 
future,  and  if  His  faithfulness  and  His  grace  have  one 
root  in  His  eternal  will,  then  for  Israel  a  great  light 
shines  upon  the  future.  This  light  is  known  as  the 
Messianic  Hope.  It  took  many  forms  and  was  expressed 
in  many  images,  according  to  the  changing  national 
conditions  and  problems.  Now,  it  was  a  prophet  greater 
even  than  Moses,  who  should  usher  in  a  clearer  and 
loftier  revelation  of  Jehovah.  Again,  it  was  a  king  who 
should  carry  the  people  to  an  imperial  glory  in  which 
all  classes  would  find  their  utmost  blessing,  and  all 
nations  be  brought  under  one  beneficent  sway  (Ps.  Ixxii.). 
Yet  again,  it  was  the  age  of  a  new  covenant  when  the 
relations  of  God  and  man  would  be  thoroughly  revised, 

—  34  — 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  FINAL  RELIGION 

when  sin  would  be  forgiven,  and  iniquity  finally  removed 
from  human  hearts  (Jer.  xxxi.  31).  As  the  sense  of 
sin  deepened,  and  especially  as  the  dreary  experience 
of  the  exile  both  widened  the  horizon  of  experience 
and  revealed  hitherto  unexplored  deeps  in  the  moral 
relations  between  Israel  and  Jehovah,  this  hope  shone 
even  through  the  medium  of  tragedy.  Suffering  and 
sorrow  were  transmuted  from  mere  instruments  of 
Divine  wrath  into  the  terrible  means  of  a  transcendent 
redemption  (Isa.  liii . ) .  The  sublime  figure  of  the  suffering 
servant  of  Jehovah  arose  before  the  prophetic  vision, 
henceforth  haunting  the  heart  of  the  people  with  its 
baffling  and  yet  fascinating  suggestions. 

At  last  the  fulfiller  of  prophecy,  the  supreme  Prophet 
and  King,  Priest  and  Victim,  redeemer  through  His 
sorrow  and  revealer  through  His  redemption,  gathered 
into  one  wondrous  Person,  and  realised  in  one  aU- 
inclusive  work,  these  and  other  elements  of  that  unique 
hope  which  God  had  given  to  Israel.  No  Hebrew  or 
Jew,  no  prophet  or  apocalyptic  seer,  comprehended  in 
his  dreams  and  words  more  than  a  portion  of  the  vast 
truth  which  is  Christ,  or  of  the  immeasurable  work 
which  He  has  done  for  man.  No  interpreter  or  scribe 
ever  arose  who  could  see  in  their  final  unity  and  inner 
harmony  all  the  scattered  rays  of  light  which  fell  from 
the  future  through  God's  messengers  upon  the  eager 
forward  gaze  of  those  who  awaited  the  consolation  of 
Israel.  As  we  look  back  through  Christ  upon  those 
words  of  encouragement  and  vistas  of  hope  which  the 

—  35  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

prophets  opened  up,  we  discover  the  final  proof  that 
they  were  indeed  messengers  of  God,  adapted  each 
to  the  need  of  the  hour,  holding  the  faith  of  the 
people  firm  until  the  Dehverer  came,  and  preparing 
their  hearts  to  know  Him. 


IV.  The  Second  Stage  :   Jesus  Christ 

At  last  there  came  out  from  Nazareth  a  Man  on  whose 
one  Person  the  history  of  our  race  has  turned  like  a  great 
door  between  time  and  eternity  upon  its  hinge.  He 
came  quietly,  as  all  God's  greatest  blessings  have  come, 
— Hke  the  secret  rise  of  order  out  of  chaos,  hke  the  break- 
ing of  each  new  day  from  the  silent  cavern  of  night,  Hke 
the  stir  of  happy  spring  from  the  fruitless  winter-tide. 
Even  his  identification  by  the  great  forerunner,  John  the 
Baptist,  took  place  only  before  a  Httle  group  of  prepared 
souls.  Yet  there  was  in  Him  a  mighty  energy.  No  weak 
speaker  of  smooth  and  sweet  thoughts  was  He.  Senti- 
mental and  luscious  phrases  never  fell  from  His  Hps. 
No  doubtful  and  shifting  programme  was  unfolded 
before  His  mind  as  He  came  forth  to  found  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  upon  earth,  to  change  the  inner  moral  rela- 
tions of  God  and  man.  There  was  something  over- 
whelming in  the  force  of  His  speech,  in  the  radiating 
energy  of  His  spirit.  The  strong  men  who  became  the 
inner  circle  of  His  followers  were  brought  to  a  humble 
obedience  and  a  yearning  faith  towards  the  majesty 
of  His  will  and  the  divine  Hght  of  His  wisdom.    The 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  FINAL  RELIGION 

gentle  dawn  was  produced  by  the  immeasurable  might 
of  the  sun. 

But  Jesus  did  not  appear  as  men  had  generally 
expected  the  Christ  to  come.  He  did  not  descend 
from  the  heavens  with  awful  portents  and  with  physical 
signs  of  a  catastrophe  in  history.  Nor  did  He  essay 
to  grasp  the  means  of  earthly  power,  and  establish  at 
once  a  Jewish  Empire  to  which  all  the  nations,  even 
Rome,  should  bring  their  tribute.  It  was  through 
perplexity  and  disappointment,  even  through  dismay, 
and,  for  a  brief  time,  through  collapse  of  faith,  that 
Christ  led  His  disciples  into  the  new  era.  Nor,  again, 
did  He  give  them  formal  instruction  about  His  Person, 
and  then  leave  them  to  attain  the  new  experience  of 
God's  grace  as  a  subsequent  event.  Nor,  yet  again,  did 
He  give  them  first  a  new  experience  of  God's  Fatherly 
grace,  so  wonderful  and  glorious  that  in  sweet  gratitude 
they  turned  round  and  invented  for  His  meek  and  in- 
appropriate Person  the  garments  of  Divinity  and  the 
mythology  of  an  incarnation.  The  great  transformation 
of  the  relations  of  God  and  man  was  wrought  much 
more  simply  and  naturally  and  deeply  than  in  any  of 
these  ways,  and  the  New  Testament  so  describes  it  that 
the  humblest  minds  are  much  more  likely  to  understand 
than  to  misunderstand  its  essence.  The  real  method  of 
Jesus  may  be  best  put  in  this  way.  The  new  religious 
experience,  the  consciousness  of  new  relations  with 
God,  grew  up  in  the  disciples  step  by  step  with  their 
gradually  deepening  appreciation  of  the  Person  of  their 

—  37  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

Lord.  It  is  as  false  to  say  that  He  first  taught  them 
the  full  truth  about  His  divinity,  and  at  a  later  date 
they  entered  into  the  new  experience,  as  it  is  false  to 
say  that  He  led  them  into  the  new  experience  and  at  a 
later  date  they  called  Him  Divine.  The  inner  experi- 
ence of  the  grace  of  God  the  Father,  and  the  worship  of 
Christ  as  the  Son  of  God  in  human  form,  were  from  the 
first  hour  of  discipleship  mutually  related.  The  seed  of 
both  was  sown  when  the  disciples  called  Him  Master, 
and  each  nurtured  the  other  until,  after  the  blackness 
of  the  Cross  and  the  glory  of  the  Resurrection,  they 
found  themselves  in  possession  of  their  own  new  sonship 
and  caught  into  the  rapturous  worship  of  the  Father 
and  the  Son  in  the  Holy  Spirit. 

1.  His  Belationship  with  God. — The  first  element  in 
the  situation  was  the  quahty  of  His  own  relationship 
with  God,  which  Jesus  manifested  in  all  the  varied 
expressions  of  His  personal  life.  Here  was  one  who 
not  so  much  aspired  after  God  as  possessed  Him. 
Without  penitence,  without  any  signs  of  past  sin  or 
broken  faith  or  unattained  ideals,  He  Hved  in  the  full 
and  serene  consciousness  of  perfect  oneness  with  the  will 
of  God  and  reahsation  of  His  indwelHng  Presence.  His 
very  use  of  the  word  "  Father  "  as  the  supreme  human 
description  of  God  revealed  an  ideal  of  faith  and  devotion 
pure  and  purifying,  noble  and  ennobhng,  which  no  man 
can  ever  feel  that  he  has  even  adequately  grasped,  far 
less  attained.     But  there  was  an  accent  in  His  use  of 

that  word  in  relation  to  Himself — "  My  Father,"  "  the 

_  38  - 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  FINAL  RELIGION 

Son  and  the  Father  " — ^which  showed  the  ideal  in  all  its 
grandeur  and  beauty  to  be  fulfilled  in  His  own  heart. 
The  disciples  saw  Him  among  them,  yet  not  of  them. 
They  felt  all  the  power  of  His  sympathy,  but  it  shone 
through  a  sense  of  His  unique  distinction.  For  they 
could  only  reach  that  wondrous  new  Hfe  with  God  which 
He  opened  out  to  them,  through  a  repentance  and  a 
faith  which  He  seemed  to  be  not  only  commanding  but 
making  possible.  Yet,  as  for  Him,  that  life  was  already 
His  by  native  right. 

2.  His  Revelation  of  the  Father. — The  second  element 
was  His  revelation  of  God  to  them.  He  came  as  a 
prophet  greater  than  Moses.  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
and  all  the  parables  of  the  kingdom  fall  from  Him  as 
one  who  ushers  in  a  new  era  in  the  ethical  Ufe  of  man- 
kind. He  does  this  not  as  a  philosopher  founding  a 
new  school  of  speculation  about  the  nature  of  goodness 
and  the  method  of  defining  the  virtues.  Nor,  although 
His  language  and  the  occasions  of  it  are  sometimes  of 
temporal  and  Jewish  significance,  does  he  teach  as 
legislator  for  one  people  and  one  age,  setting  forth  the 
solution  of  merely  local  problems  in  social  and  poUtical 
conduct.  He  does  it  as  one  who  is  at  home  among 
the  very  fountainheads  of  all  human  action  and  all 
motive,  and  whose  principles  of  conduct  toward  God 
and  man  are  therefore  of  supreme  authority  over  the 
conscience  of  every  one  who  shall  ever  be  born  as  a  child 
of  our  race.  His  work  as  a  teacher  or  prophet  endowed 
with  the  Holy  Spirit  (Luke  v.)  was  above  all  concerned 

—  39  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

with  God.  But  a  curious  and  indeed  most  wonderful 
difference  appears  at  this  point  between  His  method 
and  that  of  the  ancient  prophets.  His  revelation  of 
God  was  found  not  merely,  indeed  not  so  much,  in  explicit 
words  about  God,  as  in  His  own  manner  of  life,  and  in 
the  kind  of  things  which  He  tried  to  do  among  and  for 
the  sons  of  men.  His  own  personaHty  contained  and 
conveyed  that  supreme  truth.  When  He  was  con- 
demned by  His  enemies  for  showing  friendship  to  pub- 
licans and  sinners.  He  answered  not  as  a  social  worker 
might,  by  an  appeal  to  humanitarian  principles,  but 
in  parables  (Luke  xv.)  which  may  be  summed  up  in 
the  words,  "  I  am  acting  like  God.  In  my  conduct 
behold  His  holy  love."  He  revealed  God  by  actually 
representing  God,  the  will  and  character,  the  purpose 
and  the  Spirit  of  the  Father  shining  in  His  own  Person, 
the  Son  of  God  and  Son  of  Man. 

3.  The  Messiahship. — This  will  appear  more  clearly 
when  we  recall  the  third  element  in  the  situation,  namely, 
His  assumption  of  the  work  and  acceptance  of  the  title 
of  the  Messiah.  When  Simon  Peter  made  the  great 
confession  "  Thou  art  the  Christ,"  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  Jesus  had  not  hitherto  appUed  that  name  to  Him- 
self. But  His  entire  ministry  had  made  it  inevitable 
that  His  disciples  should  so  designate  Him.  The  notes 
of  the  Messiah  had  one  by  one  come  out  in  His  words 
and  works.  His  miracles  of  mercy,  His  dealing  with 
sinners  as  one  who  had  authority  not  merely  to  call  men 

to  repent,  but  to  bestow  the  pardon  of  God  even  in 

—  40  — 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  FINAL  RELIGION 

individual  cases  (Mark  iii.),  His  authoritative  attitude 
towards  all  men,  and  His  insistence  upon  an  absolute 
obedience   and   an   absolute   trust   from   His   disciples, 
proved  that  in  Him  the  kingdom  of  God  was  not  merely 
heralded,  as  by  a  prophet,  but  established  as  by  the 
King  Himself,  King  of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords.       He 
made  the  kingdom    actual   in  His  kingship  over  His 
disciples.     Them  He  took  away  from  all  other  obUga- 
tions  and  under  His  own  complete  control.     They  felt 
it,  and  did  not  yet  understand  it.     In  their  minds  there 
must  have  been  a  strange  blurring  of  accepted  modes  of 
thought,  through  which  alone  they  could  pass  to  the 
new  and  astounding  light.     They  felt  themselves  con- 
fusing   Jesus    and    God.     From    Jesus    they    received 
pardon,  rest,  courage,  and  hope,  but  there  is  no  sign 
in   the    Gospels    that    they    recognised   themselves    as 
having  peace  with  God.     They  could  not  go  away  from 
Jesus  and  find  the  Father  apart,  alone,  in  some  other 
source  and  mode  of  enhghtenment  than  Jesus  Himself. 
The   joy  and  contentment  of  their  souls   was  in  the 
presence  and  power  of  the  Person  and  Spirit  of  Jesus. 
Hence  when  He  was  taken  from  them  they  fell  back 
into  despair.     Their  souls  had  not  yet  found  God  or 
God's   peace,   even    after    Hving   so   long   with   Jesus. 
Nothing  is  clearer  as  a  result  of  the  modern  study  of 
the  gospels  than  this    strange    condition  in  which  the 
Apostles    found    themselves,    morally    and    religiously, 
as  the  result  of  the  kingship  of  Jesus  over  them  up  to 

and  beyond  the  Crucifixion. 

—  41  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

4.  His  Expectation  of  Death. — There  was  a  fourth 
element  in  the  situation.  While  Jesus  awoke  in  the 
disciples  the  conviction,  partly  by  His  sheer  moral  and 
spiritual  power  over  them  and  partly  by  His  very 
words,  that  the  kingdom  of  God  was  now  founded  there, 
in  His  relationship  to  them,  He  yet  taught  them  to  look 
forward.  Something  more  had  still  to  be  done  ere  the 
matter  could  be  said  to  be  accompHshed.  Gradually  it 
appeared  that  the  Messiah  intended  to  die.  This  in- 
credible event,  which  was  enough  to  shatter  their  faith 
and  sweep  hope  from  their  hearts,  Jesus  with  great  energy 
and  firmness  taught  them  to  expect.  To  the  last  they 
hoped  against  hope,  but  it  was  clear  that  He  was  deter- 
mined upon  such  an  event.  Yet  he  would  relax  none  of 
His  claims  upon  their  faith.  As  one  doomed  to  death, 
He  still  maintained  His  lordship  and  demanded  their 
trust.  For  what  seemed  to  them  disaster  was  to  Him 
triumphant  achievement.  They  must  still  obey  Him, 
trust  Him,  follow  Him  as  if  He  were  deathless.  They 
must  still  belong  to  Him  as  their  Messiah-King.  It  is 
true  that  few  sayings  of  His  are  preserved  which  inter- 
pret His  coming  death.  But  we  are  told  that  Jesus 
repeatedly  unfolded  to  them  that  event  as  one  to  which 
He  looked  forward.  And  such  unfolding  could  only 
mean  that  it  was  part,  nay,  the  crowning  act  of  His 
Messianic  work  to  die  for  His  own.  He  came  "  to  give 
His  life  a  ransom  for  many  "  (Mark  x.  45),  and  to  estab- 
lish even  through  the    shedding  of    His  blood   a  new 

relationship  between  God  and  man  (Mark  xiv.  22-25). 

—  42  — 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  FINAL  RELIGION 

That  was  what,  of  course,  no  man  could  understand 
beforehand.  Such  an  upheaval  of  the  human  way  of 
looking  at  death  could  not  be  represented  to  reason  before 
it  had  created  its  own  new  world  of  experience.  Even 
with  prophetic  words  like  those  about  the  suffering 
servant  of  Jehovah  before  them,  it  was  morally  im- 
possible for  these  men  to  see  how  the  death  of  the  Messiah 
could  be  an  act  of  Divine  redemption.  But  the  will  and 
words  of  Jesus  steadily  held  their  minds  to  the  fact 
that  for  Him  that  death  was  not  the  close  of  hfe,  but 
its  beginning ;  not  the  destruction  of  His  Messiahship, 
but  its  consummation. 

5.  The  Cross  and  the  Resurrection. — The  fifth  element 
in  the  situation  must  be  as  briefly  described  as  the  others, 
though  it  contains  two  transcendent  events,  the  death 
itself  and  the  resurrection  of  Jesus.  Each  of  these  in- 
terprets the  other,  and  the  two  together  revealed  at  last 
to  the  disciples  the  full  glory  of  the  Person  with  whom 
they  had  been  so  confusedly,  and  earnestly,  and  bHssfuUy 
consorting  for  more  than  two  years.  The  resurrection, 
with  its  succession  of  self-reveahng  acts  in  which  Jesus 
appeared  to  His  disciples,  showed  them  that  the  power 
and  might  of  God  had  burst  asunder  the  fearful  bands 
of  death.  He  Uves  !  was  the  cry  of  their  souls.  He  is 
the  Conqueror  of  the  grave.  He  reigns  of  right  over 
a  vaster  world  than  they  had  ever  dreamed  of.  Their 
future  He  holds  now  as  completely  under  control  as 
He  had  sought  to  hold  their  persons  and  their  wills 
during  the  earthly  ministry.     He  then  had  healed  their 

—  43  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

diseases,  delivered  them  from  the  storm,  rebuked  their 
sins,  demanded  their  service,  evoked  by  the  spell  of  a 
power  which  shone  beyond  all  His  deeds  and  words 
their  complete  submission  to  His  authority.  For  these 
brief  earthly  months  they  had  gladly  yielded  all  and 
received  all  this.  But  now,  as  the  conqueror  of  death, 
as  the  Lord  of  the  life  to  come,  what  limits  can  be  put 
to  His  power  or  His  authority  ?  The  world  to  come  is 
already  His  home  and  seat  of  power.  He  is  now  set  forth 
before  their  eyes  as  the  very  Son  of  God.  And  no  doubt 
with  awe  and  hushed  breath  they  confessed  that,  apart 
from  His  Cross  and  grave,  they  could  never  have  known 
Him  to  be  this  Messiah,  this  Lord  of  man's  redemption 
and  man's  destiny.  Unless  He  had  died  they  could 
not  have  known  Him  as  the  Eternal  Life.  Further, 
the  resurrection  throws  back  light  upon  the  Cross. 
The  disciples  are  not  only  taught  this  by  the  Risen 
Christ  (Luke  xxiv.),  but  by  the  mere  fact  that  He  is 
the  Risen  Christ.  And  as  in  the  days  of  His  earthly 
ministry  so  now,  the  fact  is  larger  than  all  the  words 
that  can  be  spoken  about  it  even  by  Himself.  But  this 
much  at  least  stands  clear  :  it  is  proved  that  He  had  a 
right  to  say  of  His  life,  "  No  man  taketh  it  from  Me,  I  lay 
it  down  of  Myself."  The  Cross  was  no  base  and  undesired 
fate,  the  via  dolorosa  wa,s  no  unavoidable  path  along  which 
only  alien  forces  scourged  Him.  Amid  all  the  active  clash 
of  wills  which  nailed  Him  to  the  bitter  tree.  His  own  was 
not  a  merely  passive  will.  The  symbol  of  the  dumb 
lamb  fails  us  at  that  point.    The  disciples  recalled,  for 

—  44  — 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  FINAL  RELIGION 

they  have  reported,  the  set  face  with  which  He  went  up 
to  Jerusalem,  the  amazing  energy  and  majesty  of  His 
mien  as  He  walked  before  them  ;  the  dark  battle  of  the 
spirit  into  which  at  times  He  was  swept,  when  His  voice 
broke  and  His  face  showed  the  intensity  of  the  inner 
conflict ;  the  royal  authority  which  clothed  Him  as  He 
met  His  foes  in  the  great  conflict  of  those  portentous  days ; 
the  royal  grace  of  His  last  evening  with  the  disciples  ;  the 
agony  in  the  garden  ;  the  unjdelding  will  through  the 
very  last  scenes.  Looking  back  from  the  light  of  the 
resurrection,  they  saw  now  that  through  all  those  weeks 
and  months  He  had  been  giving  Himself.  Such  a  gift 
from  such  a  being  could  only  have  one  meaning,  and  that 
the  atonement  for  the  sin  of  the  world.  The  Cross  is 
illumined  by  the  resurrection  sheen.  Its  very  blackness 
is  its  glory.  He  who  endured  it  despised  the  shame 
for  the  joy  that  lay  beyond.  Into  that  joy  His  disciples 
had  now  entered. 


V.  The  Third  Stage  :  The  Christian  Conscious- 
ness AND  THE  World 

When  the  Spirit  of  God  had  entered  into  the  hearts 
of  the  disciples,  they  knew  that  the  kingdom  had  now 
been  actually  established.  But  the  very  word,  kingdom, 
seemed  inadequate,  and  hence  occurs  with  comparative 
rarity  outside  of  the  gospels.  In  their  minds  it  was 
associated  with  all  those  mistaken  hopes  of  their  people, 
out  of  which  they  had  only  been  brought  at  great  cost 

—  45  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

to  their  Master  and  to  themselves.  What  they  now 
had  was  salvation,  eternal  life,  the  assured  and  reaHsed 
grace  and  love  of  God,  the  indwelUng  of  Christ,  of  God, 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  their  very  hearts.  We  can  easily  see 
from  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  how  surprised  and  con- 
fused they  were  at  the  first,  and  that  only  by  degrees 
did  they  come  to  see  clearly  in  the  new  world  which  they 
inhabited.  This  might  receive  abundant  illustration. 
But  we  must  be  content  with  that  which  concerns  the 
main  subject  of  our  study.  The  Book  of  the  Acts,  in 
the  simplest  and  frankest  manner,  describes  for  us  a 
series  of  astonishing  experiences  through  which  the 
disciples  came  to  see  that  their  own  new  relations  with 
God  in  Christ  constituted  the  universal  religion  of 
mankind. 

Even  the  words  which  they  have  recorded  that  the 
Risen  Christ  had  spoken  to  them,  commanding  them  to 
preach  the  gospel  to  all  men,  were  not  at  once  clear  to 
them.  Like  so  many  of  His  sayings,  this  last  and 
glorious  one  had  to  break  through  many  prejudices 
which  still  encrusted  their  minds  and  hearts  ere  they 
could  intelHgently  and  joyously  obey  it.  It  would  seem 
that  some  of  them  never  thoroughly  entered  into  its 
spirit.  At  first  they  made  the  temple  the  centre  of 
their  public  worship,  though  they  also  had  other 
gatherings  of  their  own.  It  was  not  one  of  the 
original  band,  but  Stephen  who  first  proclaimed  boldly 
that  the  temple  must  vanish  and  Mosaic  law  lose 
its  authority.      It  was  only  when  he  had   sealed  his 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  FINAL  RELIGION 

witness  with  his  death,  and  the  full  force  of  Jewish 
hatred  smote  upon  the  company  of  behevers,  scattering 
them  from  Jerusalem,  that  the  gospel  began  to  be  pro- 
claimed outside  that  city  and  beyond  the  Hmits  of  the 
Jewish  race.  Luke  tells  us  of  the  successive  stages 
of  enlightenment.  Philip  the  Evangelist  ventured  to 
preach  Christ  to  the  Samaritans.  The  result  was  such 
that  Peter  and  John  were  formally  sent  by  the  Apostles 
who  had  not  left  Jerusalem  to  oversee  this  unexpected 
extension  of  the  movement.  What  they  saw  com- 
pelled their  sympathy  and  co-operation.  Philip,  an 
intrepid  and  eager  missionary,  had  his  famous  encounter 
with  the  man  of  Ethiopia  and  baptized  him.  The  next 
surprise  came  to  Peter  himself  in  connection  with  his 
visit  to  Cornelius,  the  Roman  officer.  He  actually 
went  beyond  all  strict  Jewish  rules,  for  he  not  only 
baptized  this  man  and  his  friends,  but  became  their 
guest.  The  authorities  at  Jerusalem  were  alarmed,  but 
when  he  told  them  the  whole  story,  "  they  held  their 
peace,  and  glorified  God,  saying,  Then  to  the  Gentiles 
also  hath  God  granted  repentance  unto  life."  The 
universahty  of  the  gospel  was  beginning  to  shine  before 
their  astonished  eyes.  But  the  scales  were  not  all 
removed  yet,  and  their  vision  of  the  glory  of  God's 
grace  in  Christ  was  still  dimmed  by  fear  and  prejudice. 

At  last  the  whole  matter  was  raised  in  a  decisive 
manner  by  the  experiences  of  the  Church  at  Antioch. 
At  first  the  word  was  preached  even  there  "  only  to 
Jews  "   (Acts   xi.  9),  but  it  was  not  long  before  the 

—  47  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

message  was  delivered  to  men  of  Greek  extraction 
(ver.  20).  Then  Saul  of  Tarsus  appeared  on  the  scene, 
and  the  wider  mission  of  the  Church  was  definitely 
begun.  The  cautious  and  even  timid  leaders  at  Jeru- 
salem were  perplexed  indeed,  but  it  is  greatly  to  their 
credit  that  always  when  the  facts  were  put  before  them, 
when  it  was  proved  that  the  grace  of  God,  that  new 
and  wonderful  force  in  human  history,  had  done  for 
Gentiles  what  it  had  done  for  Jews,  they  acquiesced. 
It  was  not  for  them  to  fight  against  the  very  Spirit  of 
their  Risen  Lord.  They  might  try  to  make  conditions 
which  would  render  this  unwonted  intimacy  of  com- 
munion between  Jews  and  Gentiles  less  difficult,  but 
they  refused  firmly  to  oppose  any  obstacle  to  the  full 
reception  of  non-Jewish  Christians  into  the  fellowship 
of  the  Church  of  Christ  (Acts  xv.). 

The  man  who  most  powerfully  led  the  Christians 
into  the  new  world  of  freedom  was  the  Apostle  Paul. 
Others,  no  doubt,  saw  the  matter  for  themselves  with 
the  same  clearness,  as  the  Johannine  writings  and  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  abundantly  prove.  But  Paul 
had  gifts  of  leadership,  energies  of  speech  and  action, 
which  made  him  the  most  effective  personal  force  in 
revealing  to  the  Church  and  the  world  the  absoluteness, 
the  finality  of  the  gospel,  and  therefore  its  claim  to  the 
obedience  of  every  human  being.  In  his  work  most 
fully  and  broadly,  and  yet  also  in  the  work  of  all  the 
acknowledged  Apostles  of  Christ,  the  Christian  rehgion 
made  itself  manifest  as  the  great  missionary  religion. 


THE  RISE  OF  THE  FINAL  RELIGION 

Henceforth  it  could  not  be  true  to  itseK  unless  it  claimed 
the  right  and  authority  to  become  the  one  rehgion  of 
mankind. 

It  is  our  duty  now  to  examine  more  closely  into  the 
fundamental  doctrines  of  Christianity,  that  we  may 
see  what  that  is  which  renders  it  for  all  behevers  the 
absolute  and  final  religion,  and  which  therefore  commits 
them  all  in  principle  to  the  spirit  and  aim  and  work  of 
the  missionaries  of  Christ. 


—  49 


CHAPTER   III 

THE  CHRISTIAN  REVELATION  OF  GOD 

/CHRISTIANITY  fundamentally  consists  in  a  reve- 
^^  lation  of  God.  This  revelation,  far  from  being 
merely  the  achievement  of  eager  human  souls  who  have 
discovered  Him  passive  and  remote  and  impersonal, 
was  made  on  the  plains  of  human  history  in  words  and 
deeds  and  persons  by  the  direct  and  specific  action  of  God. 
The  absoluteness  lies  here,  in  the  real  action  of  God  giving 
Himself  to  be  known  by  men  in  His  will  and  purpose. 
This  He  has  done  through  the  Incarnation  in  the  Person 
of  Jesus  Christ,  and  through  the  gift  of  His  very  self  in 
the  Holy  Spirit  to  each  believing  soul.  The  finahty  of 
Christianity  lies  here,  in  that  God  so  made  known  is  able 
to  do  the  utmost  that  man  needs  for  the  fulfilment  of  his 
true  nature,  the  attainment  of  eternal  life,  the  possession 
of  the  supreme  good.  It  is  with  such  affirmations  that 
this  missionary  religion  arose  at  first,  and  confronts  the 
world  to-day.  If  we  are  reminded  that  the  Christian 
conception  of  God  is  questioned  by  multitudes  in  so- 
called  Christian  lands,  it  is  sufficient  here  to  reply  that 
nevertheless  this  very  conception,  for  its  intellectual  value 

in  explaining  the  course  of  nature  and  the  experience  of 

--  50  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  REVELATION  OF  GOD 

man,  for  its  moral  beauty  and  power,  still  holds  the  field 
in  solitary  grandeur.  There  is  no  important  consensus  of 
opinion  upon  any  other  explanation  of  our  world.  The 
eternal  God  is  still  manifesting  Himself  to  the  sons  of 
men  in  redeemed  characters,  in  saintly  lives,  in  the  living 
consciousness  of  countless  Christian  men  and  women. 

For  the  purposes  of  this  study  we  may  compare  the 
doctrine  of  God  which  the  missionary  must  carry  over 
the  world,  with  the  ideas  which  obtain  among  non- 
Christian  races  to-day.  And  here  we  may  well  pass 
over  the  position  of  those  whose  worship  is  what  we 
call  primitive.  Some  missionaries  and  other  observers 
maintain  that  even  among  the  rudest  African  tribes  the 
idea  of  a  Supreme  Being,  who  is  Creator  and  Lord  of  all, 
survives  in  the  midst  of  more  degraded  conceptions. 
However  this  be,  the  missionary  has  generally  found 
that  once  he  has  gained  the  right  words,  and  ascertained 
their  point  of  view,  it  is  not  hard  to  get  these  people  to 
understand  and  to  accept  the  truth  about  the  God  and 
Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  We  must  compare 
the  Christian  position  with  that  of  higher  races  and 
religions. 

I.  Compared  with  Agnosticism 

In  the  first  place,  the  doctrine  of  God  is  confronted 

by  Agnosticism.     Buddhism  has  taught  multitudes  to 

deny  that  we  can  know  Him  who  is  infinite  and  eternal. 

And  their  position  has  seemingly  been  reinforced  by 

certain  movements  of  Western  philosophy  which  try  to 

—  51  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

gain  a  rational  ground-work  for  the  teaching  that  we 

not  only  do  not,  but  by  the  very  structure  of  our  minds 

cannot,  know  God.     In  India  and  Japan  large  numbers 

of  the  educated  classes  are  of  this  persuasion,  which  they 

associate  with  the  names  of  Darwin  and  Spencer. 

1.  The  Truth  in  Agnosticism. — Now,  we  must  begin 

by  honestly  recognising  that  not  only  in  the  Bible  but 

throughout  the  history  of  Christian  thought,  a  certain 

reverent  and  relative  Agnosticism  has  been  maintained 

towards  the  being  and  nature  of  God.     "  God  is  great, 

and  we  know  Him  not,"  has  been  the  humble  cry  of 

many  hearts  that  in  another  sense  know  Him  well. 

"  Canst  thou  by  searching  find  out  God  ?     Canst  thou 

find   out   the    Almighty   unto    perfection  ?  "    was    the 

challenge  of  Zophar  to  Job,  who  so  patiently  suffered  at 

the  hands  of  God  and  the  mouths  of  men  (Job  xi.  7). 

"  How  immeasurable  are  His  judgments,  and  His  ways 

past  finding  out !  "  was  the  exclamation  of  Paul,  who  yet 

maintained  that  God  had  put  Himself  within  the  range 

of  human  knowledge.     There  must  be  something  in  the 

Christian  position  which  makes  these  two  statements 

compatible  with  one  another.     What  is  it  ?     The  secret 

is  to  be  found  in  this,  that  God  is  not  a  being  who  can  be 

merely  described  in  abstract  terms  by  caUing  Him  the 

Absolute,  the  Eternal,  the  Unconditioned,  and  so  on. 

Those  words  are  really  all  adjectives  used  as  nouns. 

If  you  raise  any  adjective  to  the  dignity  of  a  noun,  it  is 

always  apt,  unless  cautiously  handled  like  a  beautiful 

tame  tiger,  to  have  its  revenge  and  slay  your  power  of 

—  52  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  REVELATION  OF  GOD 

sane  and  clear  thinking.  To  avoid  this  fate,  we  must 
conceive  of  God,  first  of  all,  as  a  most  Hving  and  real 
being,  one  who  possesses  conscious  will,  the  power  of 
determining  Himself  towards  ends  worthy  of  His  nature 
and  His  character.  In  that  case  He  must  have  the  power 
of  determining  Himself  towards  the  means  by  which  those 
ends  are  to  be  attained.  The  Christian  religion  asserts 
that  He  has  so  determined  Himself  towards  men,  that 
He  has  given  Himself  to  be  known,  for  it  is  only  through 
our  knowledge  of  Him  that  His  end  can  be  attained. 
It  is  true  that  He  still  lives  out,  far  out,  beyond  any 
horizon  of  knowledge  of  which  our  minds  are  capable. 
But  He  has  moved  upon  us  within  that  horizon,  and 
has  revealed  Himself  in  action,  in  certain  definite  and 
concrete  ways.  It  must  be  enough  for  us  here  to  state 
briefly  three  ways  in  which  God  has  thus  revealed 
Himself. 

2.  The  Revelation  in  Nature. — When  from  the 
Christian  standpoint  we  look  back,  we  can  say  with 
great  confidence  that  God  has  made  Himself  known  in 
nature.  Paul  takes  for  granted  that  the  history  of 
thought  in  his  Greek-Roman  world  would  bear  him 
out  in  this  (Acts  xvii. ;  Rom.  i.).  Thoughtful  men  of 
many  types  and  climes  and  races  have  beheld  in  earth 
and  sky  and  sea  glorious  witnesses  to  an  "  everlasting 
power  and  divinity,"  which  alone  could  account  for  the 
majesty,  beauty,  order,  and  beneficence  of  their  pheno- 
mena (Rom.  i.  19,  20).  This  is  not  merely  knowledge 
about  Him.     When  it  is  accompanied  by  sympathetic 

—  53  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

insight  and  responsive  action  of  heart  and  conscience, 
it  is  real  knowledge  of  God  Himself.  Paul  insists  that 
in  a  true  sense  this  is  "  knowing  God  "  (ver.  21),  even 
though  the  knowledge  is  misused.  This  must  be  ex- 
panded to  include  the  revelation  of  God  in  human  nature. 
It  was  through  meditation  upon  the  mind  of  man,  in  its 
inner  and  unfathomable  depths,  its  superiority  to  the 
world  of  things,  that  the  Hindu  found  his  way  to  the 
conception  of  a  spiritual  universe.  Greek  philosophy 
travelled  on  the  same  path,  but  with  clearer  method 
and  more  satisfpng  results.  To  it  the  general  concep- 
tions of  truth  and  beauty  and  goodness  were  not  mere 
abstract  terms,  corresponding  to  no  object,  but  repre- 
sented realities  in  a  super-physical  realm  where  the  soul 
breathes  its  native  air.  The  Supreme  Good,  the  Idea 
which  at  last  in  its  study  of  perfection  the  mind  may 
reach  beyond  all  other  ideas,  is  the  origin  of  all  order 
in  nature.  That  is  God.  And  yet  under  pre-Christian 
conditions  of  life  this  mode  of  thought  remained  as  the 
privilege  of  the  few,  these  vistas  were  for  the  eye  of  the 
trained  philosopher  and  gave  no  hope  to  the  masses  of 
men.  For  most  men  human  life  did  not  become  a 
revelation  of  God.  The  history  of  man  seemed  to  have 
no  unity,  no  order,  no  moral  beauty,  affording  no  clue 
to  the  Maker  of  all.  Rather  did  it  tend  too  often  to  blur 
and  obliterate  the  clues  which  outward  nature  in  her 
might  and  regular  movement  yielded  to  thoughtful  and 
reverent  souls. 

3.  The  Revelation  in  Christ. — Christianity  is  founded 
—  54  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  REVELATION  OF  GOD 

upon  the  belief  that  God  made  Himself  known  actually 
and  directly  in  Jesus  Christ  His  Son.  Apart  from 
features  of  this  fact  which  we  must  delay  for  a  little, 
one  thing  must  be  emphasised  here.  Jesus  claimed  that 
He  knew  God,  and  that  His  whole  work  among  men 
flowed  from  that  direct,  real,  and  even  superhuman 
knowledge  of  His  Father.  The  modern  Agnostic  is  by 
this  fact  put  into  rather  an  awkward  personal  situation. 
He  must  have  the  courage  to  insist  that  Jesus  Christ 
did  not  know  God.  There  can  be  no  doubt  of  the 
supreme  moral  elevation  of  Jesus,  nor  of  His  intellectual 
power,  nor  of  the  mighty  influence  which  He  has  exerted 
on  the  hves  of  men  at  this  exact  point.  His  whole 
estimate  of  life.  His  whole  power  over  men,  sprang  from 
this  assured  possession  of  direct,  intimate,  actual  know- 
ledge of  God  which  He  could  communicate  to  them. 
The  Agnostic  must  then  say  that  he  knows  for  certain 
that  Jesus  did  not  know  God,  that  Jesus  must  have 
been  mistaken  when  He  claimed  such  knowledge.  And 
what  is  the  basis  for  this  courageous  and  hazardous 
derision  of  the  central  fact  in  the  consciousness  of  Jesus 
Christ  ?  How  do  you  know  that  Jesus  did  not  know 
God  ?  The  answer  is,  "  Because  Immanuel  Kant  and 
Herbert  Spencer  have  proved  that  human  knowledge 
is  only  relative,  that  the  Absolute  and  therefore  God 
cannot  be  known."     This  looks  Hke  audacity. 

4.  Revelation  in  the  Christian  Consciousness. — But 
Christianity  has  from  the  beginning  maintained  that 
knowledge  of  God  has  become  the  possession  of  all  who 

—  55  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

have  faith  in  Jesus  Christ.  That  assertion  constitutes 
the  very  foundation  of  all  its  preaching.  Without  that 
assertion  it  has  no  message,  no  meaning,  no  power. 
Jesus  Christ  has  fulfilled  His  claim  and  promise.  From 
Him  to  all  linked  with  Him  by  the  golden  act  of  faith, 
the  inward  assurance  of  contact  with  the  very  will  and 
Spirit  of  God  has  been  conveyed.  True,  we  must  speak 
humbly  and  carefully  of  this  knowledge  of  God.  We 
must  not  speak  as  if  individually  we  have  been  admitted 
to  the  innermost  secrets  of  the  Divine  Nature.  And  yet 
we  can  with  great  confidence  point  to  the  whole  course 
of  true  Christian  experience,  to  the  quiet  peace  of  multi- 
tudes whose  names  are  not  emblazoned  on  the  list  of  so- 
called  "  Saints,"  to  the  new  sense  of  enhghtenment  which 
God's  spirit  gives  more  wondrously,  more  widely,  more 
simply  than  ever  oriental  discipline  gave  it  to  the 
disciples  of  esoteric  teachers.  The  number  cannot  be 
told  of  those  who  have  been  able  to  arise  and  say  that 
in  the  faith  of  Jesus  Christ  they  have  come  to  know  God. 
It  is  not,  then,  in  mere  dependence  on  the  triumph  of 
our  philosophical  arguments  against  the  abstractionism 
(if  we  may  call  it  so),  the  essential  and  desolating  scepti- 
cism of  an  Agnostic's  theory  of  knowledge,  that  we 
may  face  his  kind,  whether  in  Christian  or  non-Christian 
lands.  We  can  rest  on  most  soHd  and  unmistakable 
ground  when  we  base  our  message  on  the  vast  evidence 
we  have  that  God  has  made  Himself  known,  and  that 
countless  human  beings  have  consciously  communed 
with  Him. 

-  56- 


THE  CHRISTIAN  REVELATION  OF  GOD 

II.  Compared  with  Pantheism 

In  the  second  place,  the  gospel,  in  some  regions  of  the 
world,  finds  itself  face  to  face  with  that  form  of  doctrine 
which  is  called,  in  general,  pantheism. 

1.  Pantheism. — This  mode  of  thought  is  specially 
characteristic  of  the  Hinduism  of  India.  The  Hindu 
philosophy  has  laid  deep  and  strong  grasp  upon  the 
conception  of  the  ultimate  unity  of  all  things.  It 
regards  all  life  as  flowing  from  one  fountain  of  Hfe.  All 
differences,  the  infinite  variety  of  facts  which  compose 
our  world  have  their  basis,  their  reconciHation,  in  one 
eternal,  changeless  Fact.  We  cannot  name  it  without 
destro3dng  it,  for  all  names  are  symbols  drawn  from  our 
scattered  and  shattered  fragments  of  knowledge.  We 
may  speak  of  it  as  The  One,  The  All,  the  Life  of  all  life, 
the  Light  beyond  all  lights.  The  only  way  to  get  at 
this  Idea,  which  comprehends  all  ideas  within  itself,  is 
to  turn  the  mind,  strongly,  constantly,  in  upon  itself. 
There,  in  what  will  at  first  seem  darkness,  hght  will  begin 
to  shine.  When  the  body  has  been  humbled,  when  the 
appetites  have  been  stilled,  when  the  mind  has  room  to 
move  unhindered  by  any  of  earth's  passionate  appeals, 
when  even  the  innocent  and  blessed  distractions  of  the 
senses  have  been  overcome,  when  neither  sight,  nor 
sound,  nor  taste  withdraws  the  intent  soul  from  its 
quest,  it  will  discover  its  deep,  underlying  oneness 
with  that  universal,  all-pervading  Fact.  That  will  be 
joy  unspeakable,  peace  unfathomable,  life  inscrutable. 

—  57  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

High  and  fascinating  as  such  a  view  of  the  soul's 
experience  may  be, — and  we  must  remember  that  it  is 
proving  winsome  to  many  in  Europe  and  America, — it  is 
yet  far  below  the  truth  which  the  Christian  missionary 
is  able  to  carry  with  him.  He  ought,  if  he  is  going  to 
deal  much  with  educated  Hindus,  to  appreciate  the 
fact  that  Christianity  contains  whatsoever  is  valuable 
in  this  Hindu  version  of  man's  spiritual  life,  and  sup- 
plants its  defects  with  what  is  of  surpassing  grandeur. 
The  former  element  comes  to  light  in  many  a  mystical 
saying  in  the  New  Testament,  especially  in  the  Apostolic 
experience  of  union  with  God  through  the  Risen  Christ, 
and  conscious  inhabitation  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The 
latter  appears  in  the  Christian  emphasis  upon  the  person- 
ahty  of  God.  In  the  mind  of  the  Hindu  the  idea  of 
personahty  is  associated  wholly  with  limitation,  littleness, 
futihty.  He  can  think  of  it  only  as  a  disease  ;  indeed, 
the  root  and  bitterness  of  Hving  misery  lies  exactly  there. 
Hence,  of  course,  to  destroy  the  sense  of  self,  to  quench 
personahty  in  the  all-absorbing  All,  is  the  only  way  of 
deliverance  from  the  pain  of  personal  existence.  And 
truly,  if  no  light  has  ever  streamed  from  beyond,  from 
the  good  heart  of  all  things  to  our  hearts,  this  might 
be  the  highest  view  of  man  which  experience  would 
support.  But  Christianity,  with  its  doctrine  of  a  per- 
sonal God,  must  come,  some  day,  to  the  waiting  Hindu 
world  as  the  very  word  of  deliverance.  Their  religion 
means  despair  because  the  All  swallows  up  all  in  what 
is  for  man  a  vast,  voracious,  unillumined  night.    Christi- 

-  58  - 


THE  CHRISTIAN  REVELATION  OF  GOD 

anity  alone  can  be  a  religion  of  boundless,  exalted  hopes, 
because  it  is  founded  on  the  living  God  of  redeeming  love. 

2.  Chrisfs  Conception  of  the  Father. — The  Hebrew 
religion  arose  among  tribes  who  conceived  of  their  gods 
as  personal  beings.  That  was  the  point  at  which  the 
evolution  of  the  final  religion  could  take  its  earliest, 
distinctive  beginning.  Hence,  throughout  the  Old 
Testament,  Jehovah  is  always  regarded  as  a  personal 
being.  When  Monotheism  reached  its  full  development 
in  the  later  prophets,  this  intensely  personal  conception 
of  God  was  saved  from  its  peculiar  dangers  by  the 
powerful  manner  in  which  His  lordship  over  nature 
was  combined  with  His  lordship  over  the  inner  life 
of  man.  But  it  was,  of  course,  in  Christ  and  His  gospel 
that  the  personal  being  of  God,  His  nature  as  conscious, 
directive  will,  was  at  once  fully  revealed  and  finally 
secured  against  serious  and  permanent  misconstruction. 

In  the  first  place,  Jesus  teaches  us  to  think  and  speak 
of  God  as  Father.  So  vital  and  real  is  this  name,  that 
He  employs  it  even  when  describing  the  relations  of  God 
to  outward  nature.  It  is  our  Father  who  clothes  the 
lilies  in  glory,  and  feeds  the  birds  of  heaven  with  brood- 
ing care.  It  is  our  Father  who  sends  rain  on  the  just 
and  the  unjust,  and  numbers  the  hairs  of  our  heads. 
No  one  doubts  that  in  the  inner  life  of  Jesus  there  was 
what  we,  perhaps  vaguely  and  unintelligently,  call  a 
mystical  element.  Upon  His  soul  there  fell  the  supernal 
life,  as  no  other  soul  had  ever  been  quaUfied  to  receive 
it.     In  his  nights  of  prayer,  in  the  deep  movements  of 

—  59  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

His  glorious  nature — all  passion  and  all  wisdom,  all 
energy  and  all  love — in  the  openness  of  his  imagination 
to  the  beauty  and  meaning  of  nature,  the  Divine  played 
upon  Him  as,  for  the  first  time  in  human  history,  upon 
its  truly  appropriate  and  most  perfectly  responsive 
instrument.  But  Jesus  speaks  steadily  of  this  inner 
Being  of  His  life  as  the  Father.  He  does  not  seem 
to  have  found  the  full  satisfactions  of  His  own  spirit, 
so  far  as  He  revealed  them  or  indicated  them  to  men,  in 
those  strangely  fascinating  terms  of  an  impersonal  kind 
with  which  the  mystics  have  familiarised  us.  One  need 
not  by  any  means  disparage  mysticism,  especially  as 
represented  by  some  of  its  noblest  Christian  exponents, 
in  order  to  emphasise  the  fact  that  they  have  endangered 
Christian  faith  just  in  so  far  as  they  have  excluded  from 
their  conception  of  union  with  God  the  idea  of  com- 
munion between  person  and  person.  Perhaps  the 
Christian  message  to  the  Hindu,  with  his  pantheistic 
conception  of  God,  can  render  him  no  greater  service 
than  to  dehver  him  slowly  and  painfully,  but  surely 
and  triumphantly,  out  of  his  hunger  for  the  half -sensuous 
excitements  of  his  absorption  in  the  impersonal  object 
of  his  faith,  and  to  bring  him  into  a  reaHsed  communion 
with  the  Living  Intelligence,  the  Holy  and  merciful  Will 
of  Him  who  is  Lord  of  All,  the  God  and  Father  of  Jesus 
Christ. 

And  let  this  be  added  here.     There  is  a  real  mysticism 
in  personal  relations  which  is   entirely  overlooked  by 

many  devotees  of  pantheistic  mysticism  in  our  days, 

—  60  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  REVELATION  OF  GOD 

and  it  is  the  mysticism  of  the  New  Testament,  of  Christ 

and  His  Apostles.     We  need  not  bow  before  impersonal 

vastness,  whether  it  be  called  darkness  or  Hght,  in  order 

to  find  our  souls  filled  with  sweetness  and  our  hearts 

thrilled  with  the  sense  of  the  Divine.     It  is  not  only  the 

vistas  of  forest  scenery,  or  the  grandeur  of  the  ocean, 

the  stars  at  night,  or  the  dew-drops  in  summer  meadows, 

that  inexpressibly  flood  our  souls  with  beauty.     There 

are  higher  experiences  than  even  these,  and  they  are 

found  when  friend  is  unfolded  to  friend,   when  pure 

love,   when   lofty   purposes,   when  holy   thoughts   and 

deeds  are  spoken  from  the  lips  and  fives  of  men.     These 

also  have  the  infinite  in  them,  these  also  capture  us 

with  their  compelling  beauty  and  power.     Along  these 

paths    of    personal    intercourse    with    personal    beings 

we  can  travel  out  beyond  the  reach  of  logic  or  the 

measure  of  man's  mind,  into  joys  and  even  raptures  as 

full  and  more  rich  in  ascertainable  meaning  than  those 

awakened  by  aught  that  is  less  than  a  living  and  conscious 

self.     This  is  the  mysticism  of  the  New  Testament,  as 

we  have  said.       It  is  derived  from  the  guidance  and 

example,    the    inspiration   of    our   Lord   Jesus    Christ. 

For  Him  God  was  Father,  and  for  His  soul  the  loftiest 

joy,  and  even  the  ineffable  experience,  seems  to  have 

come  when  He  was    dealing  with    the    Father  in  His 

ordaining  will  and  His  all-blessed  love. 

3.  God  revealed  in  a  Person. — The  conception  of  God 

as  personal  is,  of  course,  finally  sealed  for  us  in  the  fact 

of  the  Incarnation.     We  must  still  defer  for  a  few  pages 

—  6i  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

the  direct  discussion  of  that  topic.     All  that  needs  to 

be  said  here  is  that  the  Divine  Nature,  which  has  partially 

revealed  itself  in  the  order  and  power,  in  the  life  and 

progressiveness  of    nature,  which  is  still  more  clearly 

revealed  in  the  structure  of  man  as  a  moral  intelligence, 

has  been  at  last  most  fully  revealed  by  its  astounding 

and  glorious  act  of  assuming  the  conditions  and  form  of 

a  human  being.     No  man  who  believes  thoroughly  that 

in  Jesus  Christ  God  has  for  ever  made  our  nature  one 

with  Himself,  can  find  it  possible,  or  even  for  a  moment 

think  it  aught  but  disaster,  to  deny  the  personality  of 

the  Creator  and  Lord  of  all. 

4.  Christian  Experience. — After  what  has  been  said, 

it  need  only  be  shortly  set  down  here  for  clearness'  sake 

that  the  substance  of  Christian  experience  involves  from 

first  to  last  the  personality  of  God.     All  the  terms  under 

which  Christ  and  His  Apostles  have  taught  us  to  approach 

Him  are  consistent  only  with  this  view.     If  we  repent, 

it  is  because  His  holy  will  condemns  our  sin ;  if  we  find 

peace,  it  is  because  His  will  grants  us  pardon ;   if  we 

praise  Him,  it  is   for  His   deliberate  and  overflowing 

grace ;  if  we  are  humble  before  Him,  it  is  not  because  He 

is  All,  but  because  the  universe,  all  that  is  not  God, 

depends  for  its  being,  its  meaning,  upon  His  power  and 

purpose  ;  if  we  have  hope  for  the  future,  if  we  await  the 

wonders  and  bliss  of  the  life  to  come — the  grave  robbed 

of  us,  heaven  opened  to  us  ! — it  is  upon  the  glorious 

kindness  of  His  heart   towards  us  that  we  rest  that 

expectation.     From  first  to  last  we  must  conceive  of 

—  62  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  REVELATION  OP  GOD 

the  eternal  God  whose  will  and  mind  and  very  seM  is 
immanent  in  all  things,  the  ground  of  their  being  and 
the  source  of  their  ordered  movement,  as  yet  standing 
over  against  us,  God  our  Father,  God  in  Christ,  God 
flowing  to  us  as  the  indwelling  Spirit. 


III.  The  Enrichment  of  Monotheism 

1.  The  Mohammedan  View  of  God. — When  we  come 

to  Mohammedanism  we  face    a    religion  which  agrees 

with  Christianity  in  its  opposition  both  to  Agnosticism 

and  Pantheism.     Its  marvellous  power  is  largely  due  to 

the  vivid  and  uncompromising  manner  in  which  it  sets 

forth  the  conception  of  God  as  the  eternal  conscious  will 

which  created,  sustains,  and  rules  all  things.     It  is  not 

fair  to  accuse  Mohammedanism  as  some  do  of  teaching 

a  mere  Deism,  as  if  God  were  a  Being  who,  having  created 

the  world,  has  left  it  to  work  out  its  principles  apart 

from  Him.     On  the  contrary,  though  He  works  through 

mediating    personaUties    and    forces,    yet    He    works. 

Nothing  happens  which  He  has  not  willed,  nothing  is 

done  by  men  which  He  does  not  know  and  record  in  His 

unerring   books.     Moreover,  Mohammedanism  arose  in 

mystic  experiences  of  its  great  prophet,  and  through  its 

history  has  produced    many  high  and  rare  souls  who 

have  entered  far  into  those  realms  of  thought  and  feeling 

which  are  famihar  to  the  mystics  of  other  religions. 

But  Mohammedanism  has  its  dark  side.     It  is  at  bottom 

a  religion  of  law  and  not  of  grace.     Salvation  is,  indeed, 

-  63  - 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

promised  to  those  who  believe  in  God  as  the  prophet 
has  finally  revealed  Him,  while  all  who  disbeheve  that 
message  are  hopelessly  doomed  to  the  sufferings  of  hell. 
But  this  salvation  is  not  to  be  compared  with  that  which 
is  of  grace,  nor  this  act  of  faith  to  be  compared  with 
that  which  Christ  has  made  possible.  For,  in  the  first 
place,  no  act  of  Divine  pardon,  no  grace  that  wonder- 
fully blots  out  sin,  is  offered  to  men.  Even  those  who 
believe  in  God  and  His  prophet  are  in  the  great  day  of 
judgment  faced  with  full,  accurate,  and  detailed  state- 
ment of  all  their  deeds,  and  on  that  basis  their  admission 
to  paradise  is  to  be  determined.  Hence  God,  though 
called  "  the  All-Merciful,"  is  not  known  as  the  Father 
and  Redeemer,  the  gracious  indwelHng  Saviour  and  friend 
of  those  who  respect  and  believe  in  His  gospel.  He  is 
the  austere  and  exalted  Ruler  and  Judge,  the  awful 
administrator  of  rewards  to  those  whose  record  deserves 
them,  and  of  fearful  penalties  to  all  who  have  fallen  short 
of  His  strict  and  tremendous  demands. 

Over  against  this  view  of  God's  spirit  and  way  with 
men  we  must  set  the  whole  Christian  view  of  God, 
and  especially  its  doctrines  of  the  Trinity,  of  the  Incar- 
nation, of  redemption,  and  of  justification  by  faith. 
We  must  here  consider  the  first  of  these  four.  Christian 
missionaries  find  that  the  Mohammedans  accept  Jesus 
as  a  prophet,  the  highest  next  to  the  Founder  of  their 
faith,  but  that  they  have  an  intense  hatred  of  the  dis- 
tinctive doctrines  named  above.  Mohammed  must 
have  heard  some  echoes  of  the  faith  that  Christ  is  the 

-64- 


THE  CHRISTIAN  REVELATION  OF  GOD 

Incarnation  of  the  eternal  Son  of  God,  if  he  was  respon- 
sible for  words  like  these  in  the  Koran.  "  They  say, 
'  the  Merciful  has  taken  to  Himself  a  Son '  :  ye  have 
brought  a  monstrous  thing  !  The  heavens  well-nigh 
burst  asunder  thereat,  and  the  earth  is  riven,  and  the 
mountains  fall  down  broken,  that  they  attribute  to  the 
Merciful  a  Son  !  But  it  becomes  not  the  Merciful  to 
take  to  HimseK  a  Son  !  "  "  He  is  God  alone  !  God 
the  Eternal !  He  begets  not  and  is  not  begotten  !  Nor 
is  there  like  unto  Him  any  one  !  "  It  is  equally  mon- 
strous in  the  eyes  of  a  Muslim  to  say  that  God  was 
incarnate,  found  in  fashion  as  a  man,  in  Christ  Jesus. 
The  heaven  of  heavens  cannot  contain  Him ;  how  then 
could  He  mingle  His  majesty  with  the  littleness  and 
shame  of  human  nature  ? 

2.  The  Worship  of  Christ. — As  we  have  already  seen, 
the  Christian  faith  arose  at  first  among  Jews,  who  were 
trained  to  loathe  any  form  of  worship  which  seemed 
to  detract  from  the  soUtary  glory  of  Jehovah.  So  far 
as  we  know  there  was  not  in  Judaism  the  slightest 
tendency  to  depart  from  that  principle.  But,  as  we 
also  know,  the  disciples  of  Jesus  were  gradually  drawn 
into  a  conception  of  Him  as  the  Christ  in  virtue  of  His 
personal  influence  over  them  in  the  field  of  their  religious 
consciousness  ;  in  virtue  of  His  explicit  words  and  acts 
as  the  revealer  of  God  and  the  Lord  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  ;  in  virtue  of  His  resurrection,  viewed  as  an  act 
of  God  which  put  the  Divine  seal  upon  all  His  claims 

and  upon  all  the  experiences  which  His  personality  had 
5  -65  - 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

created  ;  in  virtue  of  that  sacrificial  death,  illumined 
now  both  by  His  words  and  acts  before  the  event,  by 
His  resurrection  and  by  the  new  world  of  Divine  love  of 
which  it  was  the  dark  doorway.  The  result  of  all  this 
was  that  they  could  not  conceive  of  God  except  through 
Christ.  Their  faith  in  God,  their  worship  of  God,  their 
love  of  God,  their  new  and  happy  obedience  to  His  will, 
was  all  conditioned  by  or  realised  in  their  faith  and 
worship  and  love  and  obedience  towards  Jesus  Christ. 
This  was  not  a  theology,  it  was  no  mere  syncretism  of 
ideas  floating  through  the  air  of  troublous  times  from 
Eastern  mystics  and  Western  philosophers.  It  was  first 
of  all  an  overwhelming  experience  of  the  indwelling  of 
God  in  their  very  souls,  and  it  was  through  and  through 
made  possible  in  every  throb  and  fibre  of  it  by  the 
person  and  work  of  Jesus  Christ.  They  did  not  argue 
themselves  into  the  worship  of  God  in  Christ,  of  Christ 
in  God.  They  were  Ufted,  surprised,  compelled  into 
it  by  Himself. 

3.  The  Spirit  of  God. — And  then  another  event 
happened  to  them,  namely,  the  coming  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  There  was  no  such  thing  as  a  unified  and  con- 
sistent doctrine  of  the  Spirit  in  Judaism.  As  of  the 
Messiah,  so  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  there  were  scattered 
glimmerings,  unsystematic  notions.  Even  in  the  words  of 
Jesus,  not  excluding  the  great  passages  in  John  xiv.-xvi., 
there  was  not  enough  material  to  produce  of  itself  the 
teachings  of  the  Epistles,  nor  to  create  a  faith  which 

could    induce    that    enthusiastic    consciousness    from 

—  66  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  REVELATION  OF  GOD 

whose  depths  those  teachings  sprang.  Jesus  seems  to 
have  said  just  enough  to  give  them  the  key  to  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  great  event  when  it  happened,  and  of 
the  great  new  Presence  which  was  then  and  thenceforth 
reahsed  within  the  organism  of  human  experience. 
Hence  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  even  if  the  second 
chapter  of  Acts  had  not  been  written,  careful  students  of 
the  New  Testament  would  have  been  almost  compelled 
to  invent  some  such  event, — namely,  the  coming  of  the 
Spirit  of  God  to  the  disciples  as  a  body, — in  order  ade- 
quately to  explain  the  position  which  the  work  and 
character  of  the  Holy  Spirit  assumed  in  the  life  and 
thought  of  the  Apostles. 

The  result  of  all  these  events,  these  deeds  done  upon 
them  by  God,  was  that  those  strict  monotheists  found 
themselves  worshipping,  trusting,  loving,  obejang  God 
the  Father,  and  His  Son  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  Holy 
Spirit. 

4.  The  Monotheism  of  the  Apostles. — It  is  of  the 
utmost  importance  to  note  two  facts  here. 

The  first  is  that  this  new  form  of  conceiving  that 

Divine  Nature  towards  which  their  faith  and  worship 

were  directed  did   not    come    from  any  anticipations 

or    suggestions    either   in   Jewish    or    Greek   thought. 

They    were,    as    we    said    above,    surprised    and    yet 

compelled   into    it    by    the    personality  of    Jesus,   by 

those  events  which   occurred   to  Him  or  flowed  from 

Him,   and   by  the    new    relationship    with    God    into 

which    the     whole     process     finally     and    consciously 

-67  - 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

put  them.  It  was  as  if  a  company  of  men  should 
be  carried  by  the  spell  of  a  great  captain  to  board 
his  ship,  should  be  taken  by  him  through  storm  and 
sunshine  and  over  unwonted  seas  to  a  strange  and 
wondrous  land.  There,  under  new  skies,  and  amid  the 
novelties  of  a  glorious  and  fruitful  scene,  they  would  be 
forced  to  readjust  their  whole  consciousness.  Their 
very  language  would  begin  to  change  its  meanings,  and 
their  ancient  forms  of  thought  to  jdeld  before  the  pre- 
sence of  the  new  environment.  So  it  was  with  the 
apostolic  band.  They  found  themselves  indeed  in  a 
new  world,  as  if  they  were  completely  changed  men, 
robbed  of  many  an  ancient  and  familiar  object,  many  a 
dear  custom,  and  yet  forced  to  make  some  connection 
between  the  old  and  the  new,  forced  to  look  upon  the 
former  things  as  leading  up  by  God's  will  to  these,  lest 
their  very  reason  should  crack  and  the  sense  of  their 
identity  vanish  in  so  mighty  a  cataclysm  of  human 
experience.  The  Apostles  were  thus  brought  into  that 
form  of  worship  which,  at  a  later  date,  came  to  be 
called  Trinitarian,  not  by  ingenious  reasonings  of  their 
own,  not  by  putting  together  vague  hints  from  other 
rehgions  and  philosophers,  but  by  a  course  of  experience 
which,  culminating  in  the  conscious  fellowship  of  God 
the  Father,  was  produced  by  the  Person  of  Jesus  Christ, 
and  was  reahsed  in  the  powerful  inworking  of  the  Spirit. 

In  the  second  place,  while  thus  worshipping  these 
three  names  the  Apostles  strenuously  held  to  the  unity 

of  God.     Their  monotheism  had  not  perished.    It  had 

—  68  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  REVELATION  OF  GOD 

passed  into  a  new  and  higher  form.  There  was  room 
here  for  abundant  and  most  earnest  thought  and  con- 
troversy within  the  Church,  and  there  was  ground  also 
for  deep  and  natural  misunderstanding  by  those,  both 
Jews  and  Gentiles,  who  were  without. 

There  are  passages  in  the  New  Testament  which 
show  the  Apostles  full  of  confidence  that  their  worship  of 
the  one  living  and  true  God  in  the  three  names.  Father, 
Son,  and  Spirit,  could  be  defended  at  the  bar  of  reason. 
They  were  living  at  the  earhest  stage  of  the  discussion, 
and  dealing  with  its  first  questions,  but  their  affirmations 
have  been  used  by  the  Church  always  as  the  basis  of  all 
further  investigation.  In  the  Gospel  according  to  St. 
John,  the  idea  of  the  Logos,  the  Word  of  God,  is  used  to 
explain  the  eternal  relation  of  Christ  to  God  (John  i.  1). 
This  "  Word  "  is  no  mere  abstraction,  but  at  least  a 
most  real  and  definite  element  in  the  nature  and  life 
of  God  Himself.  Through  this  power  God  has  created 
the  universe  and  directed  the  course  of  human  history. 
All  races,  "  every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world," 
have  therefore  a  native  relationship  with  and  dependence 
upon  this  Word  of  God.  "  The  Word  became  flesh," 
the  writer  goes  on  to  say  (ver.  14),  and  thereafter  de- 
scribes the  manner  in  which  the  Only-begotten  of  the 
Father  lived  and  taught,  died  and  rose  again  in  the 
midst  of  a  chosen  group  of  witnesses.  A  similar  passage 
occurs  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians  (i.  13-20),  where 
the   Apostle,   fighting   apparently  against   some   subtle 

influences  of   Greek  mystical  philosophy  (Gnosticism), 

-69- 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

described  the  eternal  relations  of  Christ  to  God.  He 
uses  the  personal  term  "  Son."  It  was  in  and  through 
His  Son  that  all  things  were  created  by  God.  In  their 
vast  and  immeasurable  concourse  they  are  "  held 
together  "  in  Him.  And  He  is  their  true  meaning,  for 
the  entire  process  of  creation  and  redemption  of  which  He 
has  been  the  guiding  force  will  bring  at  last  "  all  things  " 
into  some  final  and  ineffable  harmony  and  unity  in  Him. 
The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  opens  with  a  sublime  passage 
in  which  the  same  doctrine  is  laid  down  (Heb.  i.  1-4). 
A  glorious  and  infinite  personality,  and  not  a  mere 
formula,  is  the  supreme  explanation  of  the  universe. 
Thus  did  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament  set  forth  the 
Deity  of  Christ,  and  use  the  terminology,  whether  Jewish 
or  Greek,  which  was  naturally  at  hand  and  most  suitable 
for  the  expression  of  their  thought. 

No  one  disputed  that  the  Holy  Spirit  represented 
the  action  of  God  Himself  in  the  human  heart.  The 
only  question  came  to  be,  in  after  days,  whether 
we  can  draw  a  distinction  between  the  Holy  Spirit 
and  God  the  Father  as  definitely  as  between  the 
Father  and  the  Son.  But  in  the  days  of  the  Apostles 
this  was  not  disputed.  The  words  of  Jesus,  even  the 
few  sayings  in  the  Synoptics  which  name  the  Spirit, 
were  definite  and  clear  evidence  that  for  His  con- 
sciousness some  distinction  did  exist. 

The   Apostles,    then,   on   the   authority   of  Christ's 

consciousness,    interpreted    by    and    interpreting    their 

own   experience    of    union    with    God,    held   that    the 

—  70  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  REVELATION  OF  GOD 

names  Son  and  Holy  Spirit  apply  to  God's  eternal  Being 
and  Nature  as  truly  as  the  name  Father,  and  that  all 
three  correspond  to  and  represent  to  our  minds,  how- 
ever dimly,  real  and  eternal  elements  in  His  ever  glorious 
and  ever  blessed  Life. 

6.  The  Modern  Situation, — The  Christian  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  has  suffered  much  in  recent  days,  partly 
from  misapprehension  of  its  true  relation  to  Christ's 
own  life,  and  partly  from  a  prejudice  which  set  in  under 
the  influence  of  positivist  philosophies  and  of  the 
methods  of  natural  science,  against  the  use  of  sheer 
reason  for  the  solution  of  our  supreme  problems.  As 
we  have  now  seen,  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was 
primarily  rooted  in  the  facts  of  the  Christian  life.  Christ 
originated,  and  His  Spirit  moulded  and  directed  it. 
It  may  be  that  for  the  majority  of  Christian  people 
that  is  enough.  Let  them  see  in  the  Saviour  the  eternal 
Son  of  God,  and  in  His  Spirit  the  very  Spirit  of  the 
eternal  God,  and  they  may  never  need  or  ask  for  more. 
But  such  people  cannot  be  teachers  of  Christianity 
either  to  philosophic  minds  in  Christian  lands,  or  to 
educated  Hindu  and  Mohammedan  theologians  on 
the  mission  field.  The  Christian  view  of  God  must 
measure  itself  in  turn  against  the  full  force  of  all  these 
and  any  other  antagonistic  systems,  if  it  is  to  prevail 
over  all  and  become  the  universal  faith  of  mankind. 
In  this  work  its  heralds  must  not,  in  a  kind  of  childish 
fashion,  complain  of  the  abstruse  and  technical  nature 

of  the  discussion.     These  are  simply  the  quaUties  of 

—  71  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

thoroughness  in  every  sphere  of  thought.  The  men  who 
would  convince  the  world  that  the  worship  of  the  true 
God  means  the  worship  of  God  the  Father  and  His 
Son  Jesus  Christ,  in  His  Holy  Spirit,  must  be  prepared 
to  prove  at  the  bar  of  reason  that  this  view  of  the 
Divine  Nature  is  superior  to  any  other  view  of  the 
ultimate  cause  and  ground  of  the  universe. 

For  example,  they  must  face  the  follower  of  Herbert 
Spencer,  who  even  in  the  last  edition  of  his  First 
Principles,  and  after  writing  in  other  works  many 
things  that  seemed  inconsistent  with  it,  yet  clung  to 
has  early  theory  that  from  the  three  ideas  or  facts  of 
matter,  motion,  and  force  he  could  derive  the  whole 
universe  and  the  loftiest  reaches  of  the  history  of  man. 
That  was  his  trinity,  and  it  needed  no  less  abstruse 
and  no  less  technical  discussion  to  set  it  forth  than 
does  the  Christian  Trinity.  It  might  be  shown  that 
Spinoza,  the  so-called  pantheist,  rested  on  a  trinity 
of  fundamental  ideas  in  expounding  his  famous  system. 
Not  to  mention  Hegel  himself,  it  may  be  sufficient  to  say 
that  any  one  of  his  distinguished  disciples  of  to-day — Mr. 
Royce,  or  Dr.  Bradley,  or  Dr.  M'Taggart — seems,  when 
discussing  his  conception  of  the  absolute  and  its  re- 
lation to  human  morality,  to  be  at  least  as  difficult, 
as  remote,  as  unpractical  as  any  of  the  great  Christian 
expounders  of  the  Trinity.  The  only  way  to  see  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  aright  is  to  compare  it  with  all 
other    systems   which   strive   to    give   us   an  ultimate 

explanation  of  God  and  His  universe. 

—  72  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  REVELATION  OF  GOD 

There  are  three  chief  opponents  of  the  Trinitarian 
view  of  God.  (1)  First  the  Agnostic,  which  tends  always 
to  become  the  materiahstic,  view  is  wrecked  on  its 
inabihty  to  explain  the  phenomena  of  the  human  mind, 
including  the  whole  course  of  man's  reUgious  conscious- 
ness, from  below.  The  lower  can  never  be  made  to  yield 
the  higher  forms  of  reality  by  a  process  of  impersonal  or 
undirected  evolution.  (2)  The  Pantheistic  view  in  any  of 
its  varied  and  subtle  forms  is  ever  convicted  of  doing 
deep  injustice  to  man's  moral  nature.  That  nature 
resents  evil  and  condemns  sin  as  steadily  as  it  holds 
the  categories  of  reason  ;  and  a  system  which,  like  Pan- 
theism, casts  all  moral  distinctions  into  one  melting  pot, 
to  bring  out  an  Absolute  in  which  they  are  all  equally 
and  indifferently  included,  cannot  be  endured  by  the 
normal  consciousness  of  the  Christian  world.  (3)  The 
Mohammedan  or  Unitarian  view  of  God  as  an  eternal, 
single  personality  of  the  type  of  our  own  is  always 
in  an  unstable  equilibrium.  It  tends  to  fall  away 
towards  agnosticism  on  the  one  hand  or  towards 
pantheism  on  the  other.  If  it  strives  to  save  itself 
by  chnging  to  the  name  of  God  as  Father,  it  has  no 
authority  for  this  but  the  word  of  Jesus ;  and  He  had 
no  more  authority  for  it  than  any  other,  unless  He 
was  more  than  man.  It  is  really  not  too  much  to  say 
that  the  Christian  view  of  God,  as  a  Being  who  must 
be  conceived  of  as  triune  or  threefold  in  His  eternal 
nature,  is  still  immeasurably  more  secure  and  reasonable 
than  any  of  those  which  we  have  named. 

—  73  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

6.  The  Doctrine  of  the  Trinity  in  the  Light  of  Reason. 
— There  are  two  principal  ways  in  which  in  current 
theology  men  try  to  justify  this  position  at  the  bar 
of  reason.     They  can  only  be  briefly  indicated  here. 

(1)  In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  purely  metaphysical 
method,  which  starts  out  from  the  idea  of  the  eternal 
God  as  a  personal  being,  that  is,  as  living  in  the  form 
of  a  conscious  will.  This  conception  is  given  to  us 
alike  by  our  view  of  nature  as  an  ordered  and  purposive 
system,  and  therefore  the  work  of  a  rational  being, 
and  by  our  religious  experience.  But  consciousness 
always  implies  an  object,  and  will  cannot  work  unless 
it  has,  as  it  were,  material  to  work  with.  The  human 
conscious  will  would  be  inert  and  really  dead,  unless 
it  were  from  the  first  in  contact  with  that  world  upon 
which  it  can  be  employed  and  from  which  it  receives 
the  stimulus  to  act.  If,  then,  we  are  to  conceive  the 
divine  mind  and  will  as  eternally  alive  and  active,  it 
must  have  an  object  eternally  worthy  of  itself.  But 
between  that  object,  upon  which  this  conscious  will 
projects  itself  in  a  glorious  communion,  and  ItseK, 
there  must  be  a  medium  of  mutual  interaction.  Each 
of  these  three  conceptions  is  inherently  necessary  to  our 
total  conception  of  the  Eternal  God  as  a  living  and 
conscious  will. 

It  is  a  curious  and  interesting  confirmation  of  this 
argument  that  when  a  philosophical  Unitarian  like 
Martineau  faced  the  problem,  he  saw  that,  without  an 
eternal  object,  the  divine   and  eternal   subject  or  self 

—  74  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  REVELATION  OF  GOD 

could  have  no  conceivable  reality  or  life.  Hence  he 
was  compelled,  in  order  to  have  a  real,  eternal  God, 
to  suppose  that  the  universe  itself  is  eternal.  He  did 
not  seem  to  see  or  feel  these  two  deadly  objections 
to  this  form  of  solution,  (a)  The  universe  so  far  as 
we  know  it  is  a  process  in  time,  in  which  no 
object  really  answering  to  the  full  needs  of  the 
Divine  Nature  can  be  found.  Even  if  it  be 
argued  that  in  man,  perhaps  idealised  as  humanity, 
we  find  that  which  answers  to  the  "  object  "  we  are  in 
search  of,  it  must  be  answered  that  this  is  an  assump- 
tion which  all  the  facts  seem  to  contradict.  For  one 
thing,  man  is  but  a  late  arrival  on  the  scene,  and  God 
is  eternal.  For  another  thing,  humanity  is  no  more 
worthy  than  the  individuals  who  compose  the  mass, 
and  none  of  them  (except  One)  has  been  able  to  confront 
the  Lord  of  All  with  the  consciousness  that  in  him  the 
will  of  God  was  fulfilled,  (b)  It  is  not  a  wild  assertion, 
it  is  a  truth  which  can  be  fully  argued  out,  that  whatever 
form  of  existence  is  eternally  necessary  to  the  reality 
of  God  must  constitute  a  part  or  element  of  His  nature. 
The  theory  that  the  universe  is  eternal  is  equivalent, 
therefore,  to  the  theory  that  it  is  a  form  or  condition  of 
the  very  being  of  God,  and  in  that  case  we  are  thrown 
back  into  pantheism,  with  all  its  moral  dangers  and 
intellectual  inconsistencies,  (c)  We  may  add  yet  a 
third  observation,  that  the  theory  of  the  eternal  creation 
of  the  universe  is  philosophically  just  as  difficult  to 
conceive  or  expound  or  defend  as  the  theory  of  the 

—  75  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

eternal  generation  of  the  Son,  or  the  eternal  forthgoing 
of  the  Logos.  The  latter  theory  has  the  double  advan- 
tage of  being  free  from  objections  such  as  (a)  and  (b)  given 
above,  while  it  is  founded  purely  upon  the  rock  of  the 
historical  Person  and  Work  of  Christ,  the  Son  of  God. 

If,  then,  we  are  to  conceive  of  God  in  terms  of  a 
living  and  conscious  will,  the  doctrine  of  a  triune  mode 
of  His  being  is  logical  and  necessary. 

(2)  In  the  second  place,  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 

may  be  deduced  from  the  religious  conception  of  God 

as  the  eternal  Father.     For  if  we  are  to  speak  of  an 

eternal  Fatherhood  we  are  forced  to  ask  of  what  He  is 

the  Father.     To  say  that  He  is  the  Father  of  the  universe 

is  to  correlate  terms  which  are  unequal  in  their  content. 

The  existence  of  the  universe  may  yield  the  idea  of  a 

Creator,  but  not  that  richer  and  fuller  idea  of  a  Father. 

If  we  again  find  the  correlate  of  God's  Fatherhood  in 

man,  we  are  still  dealing  with  unequal  terms,  for  man  is, 

even  at  the  longest  date  given  by  science  to  his  birth, 

but  a  child  of  yesterday  when  compared  with  the  eternity 

of  the  Fatherhood  of  God.     The  doctrine  of  an  eternal 

Son  is  the  only  secure  basis  for  the  faith  in  an  eternal 

Father.     Men  who  abandon  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 

as   a   relic   of  dead  dogmatics   are   really  burying   the 

Fatherhood  of    God  in  the  same  dismal  sepulchre  of 

contempt.     For  God  did  not  surely  become  a  Father, 

incidentally,  at  a  certain  stage  in  the  evolution  of  our 

world  or  of  any  other  world  in  time  and  space.     Our 

rehgious    consciousness   and    needs   demand  or  create 

-76- 


THE  CHRISTIAN  REVELATION  OF  GOD 

faith  in  Him  as  essentially  and  absolutely  the  eternal 
Father.  On  that  the  permanence  of  our  faith  and 
the  finality  of  our  hope  in  His  grace  and  mercy 
depend.  This  line  of  thought  means  that  if  God  is 
eternally  and  by  His  very  nature  a  Father,  then 
some  one  existed  eternally  as  His  Son.  But  this 
Son  is  in  that  case  a  condition  or  element  of  the  very 
nature  of  God.  He  is  the  other,  the  corresponding 
object  on  whom  eternally  the  will  and  intelligence  and 
love  of  the  Father  is  fixed,  without  whom  neither  will 
nor  intelligence  nor  love  could  be  eternally  active.  He 
must  then  be  in  His  own  nature  and  essence  the 
answering,  the  all- worthy  object  of  God's  Fatherhood, 
very  God  of  very  God.  And  the  medium  or  mode 
of  connection  between  the  eternal  Father  and  the 
eternal  Son  must  be  that  Spirit  in  which  each  is 
related  to  and,  as  it  were,  acts  upon  the  other. 
Through  the  Incarnation  and  the  Spirit  this  mystery 
of  God's  nature  has  been  revealed. 

It  is  not  possible  in  this  place  to  extend  this  exposi- 
tion. It  is  enough  to  say  that  this  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  is  at  the  very  least  as  worthy  of  our  admiration 
as  any  other  attempt  to  conceive  metaphysically  and 
religiously  of  that  one  ultimate  Fact  on  which  all  created 
facts  and  temporal  processes  rest.  It  has  this  very  great 
advantage,  that  it  compels  us  to  think  of  the  created 
universe  as  no  mere  logical  deduction  or  inevitable 
outflow  from  the  Divine  Nature.  It  has  an  ethical 
origin.     It  is  the  glorious  reflection  upon  the  canvas 

—  77  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

of  time  and  space  of  the  rich,  the  ineffably  glorious, 
inner,  and  eternal  nature  and  life  of  the  Godhead.  It 
is  not  the  task  of  the  theologian  to  describe  the  mode 
in  which  God  has  made  the  created  facts  to  flow  in  the 
channels  of  time.  That  is  the  work  of  the  man  of  science 
and  the  historian.  The  theologian  who  has  learnt  to 
worship  God  in  terms  of  the  Father  and  the  Son  and  the 
Spirit  is  not  only  content,  but  made  confident  and  glad 
to  find  that  this  worship  of  the  Triune  can  be  defended 
at  the  bar  of  reason,  and  that  God  thus  conceived  and 
thus  described,  albeit  with  unworthy  and  faltering  lips, 
is  yet  clearly  seen  to  be  above  all  gods. 


78 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  CHRIST 

rilHE  distinctively  Christian  doctrine  of  God  rests 
on  the  behef  not  only  that  Jesus  Christ  was  more 
than  man,  btit  that  He  was  the  God-man.  In  Him 
a  certain  Being  who  lived  eternally  in  God,  assumed 
the  conditions  of  an  earthly  life  and  entered  into  the 
fundamental  elements  of  a  human  experience. 

The  distinctively  Christian  doctrine  of  salvation 
rests  on  the  behef  that  in  and  through  Jesus  Christ  the 
personal  or  moral  relations  of  God  and  man  were  changed. 
This  change  was  wrought  not  merely  by  the  act  of 
incarnation  referred  to  above,  but  by  the  act  of 
sacrifice  on  the  Cross  and  the  act  of  glory  at  the 
Resurrection. 

In  proceeding  to  discuss  these  two  great  topics  it 
is  best  to  begin  by  fully  and  frankly  acknowledging 
their  greatness.  Christianity  can  never  be  fairly 
expounded  as  a  system,  or  promulgated  as  a  gospel, 
if  at  the  start  we  try  to  recommend  it  by  reducing 
the  wonder  and  miraculous  nature  of  its  central  feature. 
In  fact,  there  are  many  minds  which  believe  it  more 
easily  when  it  is  presented  in  the  unmitigated  majesty 

—  79  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

of  its  original  affirmations.  Such  minds  feel  that  the 
very  ideas  involved  in  it  are  too  wonderful,  too  much 
above  the  range  and  spirit  of  man's  best  reUgious  thoughts, 
to  have  been  invented  by  even  the  noblest  dreamers. 
Moreover,  these  ideas  of  a  God  who  stooped  in  divine 
pity  to  the  low  levels  of  human  experience,  and  there 
endured  the  shame  of  death  for  our  salvation,  are  of 
such  transcendent  worth  that,  if  invented,  those  who 
invented  them  must  be  morally  superior  to  Him  of 
whom  they  vainly  dreamed  such  glory.  But  if  they 
were  really  acts  of  Grod,  then  the  Incarnation  and  the 
Atonement  are  miracles  of  the  most  extraordinary 
order,  perhaps  the  only  miracles  in  the  fullest  sense. 
In  them  God  has  entered  into  a  new  relation  with  His 
created  universe,  with  the  nature  and  sin  of  humanity, 
and  that  relation  is  becoming  the  basis  for  all  further 
developments  of  our  race.  The  whole  course  of  man's 
history  must  be  henceforth  directed  and  moulded  by 
God  through  that  system  of  personal  and  moral  relations 
which  He  has  estabhshed  between  Himself  and  mankind 
in  Jesus  Christ,  His  Person  and  His  work. 

In  this  chapter  we  must  deal  with  the  fact  of  the 
Incarnation.  Under  this  head  there  are  three  main 
subjects  to  be  discussed.  First,  what  is  the  origin 
and  basis  of  this  great  Christian  conception  ?  Second, 
how  was  it  first  promulgated,  especially  in  its  relation 
to  other  central  Christian  doctrines  ?  Third,  what 
efforts  have  been  made  to  explain  it  in  the  history  of 

Christian  theology  ? 

—  80  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  CHRIST 

I.  The  Origin  and  Basis  of  the  Doctrine 
OF  THE  Incarnation 

1.  Non-Christian  Incarnations. — Here  we  must  take 
account  of  the  idea  which  has  often  been  advanced, 
that  as  other  rehgions  and  philosophies  have  cherished 
the  notion  that  their  founders  or  heroes  had  a  super- 
natural birth  or  enjoyed  a  pre-human  existence,  or 
both,  the  Christian  view  of  Christ  must  be  treated  as 
simply  one  more  instance  of  this  superstitious  tendency 
of  the  human  mind.  This  argument  takes  two  slightly 
different  forms.  The  first  asserts  that  this  tendency 
has  shown  itself  at  different  times  and  places  inde- 
pendently, and  that  therefore  we  need  not  seek  to 
prove  that  the  Christian  Apostles  derived  it  from  any 
other  source  than  inflamed  imaginations  working  upon 
their  intense  admiration  for  Jesus.  The  other,  which  is 
now  being  strenuously  advocated  by  followers  of  what 
they  choose  to  call  "  the  religious-historical  method," 
insists  that  the  air  which  the  Apostles  breathed,  especially 
when  they  were  driven  out  from  the  confines  of  Judaism, 
was  full  of  this  and  kindred  conceptions  which  they 
rapidly  absorbed  and  reproduced  in  the  highly  developed 
form  of  the  Christian  system. 

In  attempting  to  meet  such  a  criticism  of  the  Christian 

faith,  many  feel,  and  with  full  justice,  that  this  strong 

tendency  of  the  human  mind,  when  working  upon  the 

great   problems   of   human   character   and   destiny,   to 

conceive  of  a  union  of  the  Divine  Nature  and  the  human 
6  _  8i  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

nature  is  a  powerful  witness  in  favour  of  the  Christian 
position.  Is  not  this  one  of  the  flashes  of  insight  given 
by  that  light  which  Ughteth  every  man  who  comes  into 
the  world  ?  If  we  are  to  hold  faith  in  a  providential 
guidance  of  the  whole  race  of  man,  of  a  praeparatio 
evangelica,  an  inspiration  which  works  in  some  manner 
throughout  history,  it  is  surely  in  wonderful  consistency 
with  that  most  Christian  faith  that  we  find  the  human 
mind  in  so  many  races  and  cHmes  attuned  to  the  grand 
music  which  the  shepherds  heard  at  Bethlehem,  ready 
for  the  manifestation  of  the  eternal  Son  of  God  when 
the  perfect  conditions  had  been  arranged  ?  Man  has 
evidently  a  tendency  to  believe  in  a  God  who  does 
relate  Himself  closely  with  human  history,  and  in  the 
capacity  of  human  nature  to  receive  and  exhibit  the  very 
nature  and  self  of  God. 

2.  Two  Tests. — But  when  we  come  to  close  dealing 
with  the  inquiry  whether  this  vague  human  hope 
has  been  fulfilled  anywhere  in  history,  we  must  seek 
out  and  apply  faithfully  whatever  may  seem  to  us  to 
be  real  and  severe  tests,  worthy  and  fit  to  discriminate 
between  the  true  and  the  false.  And  here,  as  everywhere 
else  in  the  field  of  Christian  defence,  we  must  be  ready 
most  frankly  to  apply  to  our  own  faith  whatsoever 
standards  and  tests  of  truth  we  bring  to  bear  upon  any 
rival  faith.  In  the  matter  before  us  there  seem  to  be  at 
least  two  vital  questions  with  which  we  must  challenge  the 
sublime  claims  of  Christianity,  as  well  as  those  of  any  other 

religion  which  has  developed  a  doctrine  of  incarnation. 

—  82  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  CHRIST 

(1)  In  the  first  place,  we  must  ask  whether  the 
character  and  work  of  the  man  who  has  founded 
a  rehgion,  and  God's  work  through  him  upon  other 
souls,  requires  such  a  theory  to  account  for  His 
power  and  therefore  for  His  person.  In  the  case 
of  the  founders  of  Buddhism  and  Mohammedanism,  it 
seems  clear  that  their  influence  upon  their  immediate 
followers  was  at  the  highest  possible  measure  the  influence 
of  earnest,  powerful,  and  perhaps  inspired  personaHties. 
But  no  element  in  the  work  which  they  did  requires  us 
to  believe  that  the  basis  of  their  personality  was  other 
than  that  which  is  common  to  all  men.  Their  personal 
excellence,  high  though  it  was,  could  not  be  called 
superhuman.  On  the  contrary,  we  find  that  they  had, 
though  in  different  forms,  the  sense  of  moral  demerit  or 
sin.  Each  bears  witness  to  this  in  the  very  form  of 
his  religious  experience.  He  who  became  the  Buddha 
had  to  break  away  from  self-indulgence  at  twenty-nine 
years  of  age,  and  passed  through  a  long  course  of  moral 
self-discipHne  ere  he  attained  his  enlightenment.  And 
that  moral  vision  which  he  did  at  last  win  for  himself, 
high  and  noble  as  it  was,  shows  itself  blurred  and  in- 
complete when  compared  with  the  white  light  of  the 
Spirit  of  Jesus.  As  to  Mohammed,  the  Koran  itself 
bears  on  many  of  its  pages  the  marks  of  his  moral  un- 
worthiness.  The  work  of  the  Buddha  was  to  point  out 
to  others,  with  great  and  compelling  enthusiasm,  the 
discoveries  which  his  own  soul  had  made  at  such  cost, 
without  any  faith  in  God.     The  work  of  Mohammed 

-83  - 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

was  to  persuade  his  fellow-tribesmen  that  God  had 
inspired  him  with  a  long  succession  of  verbal  messages 
which  henceforth  were  to  be  the  law  of  their  life.  Neither 
the  moral  experience  nor  the  religious  influence  of  these 
two  men  therefore  requires  us  to  ascribe  to  them  a  nature 
that  is  more  than  human,  and  their  first  disciples  did 
not  do  so.  A  man  can  get  all  the  best  that  Buddha  or 
Mohammed  has  done  for  any  one,  while  accounting  him 
but  a  child  of  the  human  race. 

When  we  turn  to  the  apostolic  writings  we  find  our- 
selves in  another  atmosphere  entirely.  The  first  disciples 
of  Jesus  received  from  Him  a  religious  experience, 
that  is,  a  new  relationship  with  God,  which,  if  it  was  real, 
none  could  create  for  them  and  in  them  who  was  not 
more  than  a  man.  When  Saul  of  Tarsus  was  converted, 
he  found  that  the  infinite  gulf,  a  moral  gulf,  which  had 
separated  him  from  God  was  abolished.  It  was  abolished 
not  by  any  theory  of  his  own  mind,  not  by  any  emotional 
appeals  of  the  Christian  preachers,  not  even  by  a  know- 
ledge of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  about  the  Father ;  it  was 
abolished  by  the  act,  the  merciful  will  of  Jesus  Himself. 
The  earliest  Christian  sermon  on  record  asserts  that 
the  sending  of  the  Spirit  of  God  upon  the  assembled 
disciples  was  the  act  of  Him  whom  God  had  exalted  in 
resurrection  glory  (Acts  ii.  33).  Henceforth  the  supreme 
moral  and  spiritual  endowments  of  which  these  men  were 
conscious  possessors,  than  which  none  higher  or  more 
divine  can  be  named  by  any  man,  were  immediately 

traced  to  the  personal  influence,  the  active  will  of  Jesus. 

-  84  - 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  CHRIST 

Nay  more,  the  New  Testament  writers  set  forth  with 
great  energy  the  evident  truth  that  one  who  had  saved 
men  by  His  death  on  a  cross,  who  had  been  raised  from 
the  dead,  not  Hke  Lazarus  to  a  revived  earthly  career, 
but  to  the  eternal  life  and  the  throne  of  God,  must  be 
indeed  none  other  than  the  Son  of  God  (Acts  ii.  36,  iii.  14, 
15,  iv.  10-12  ;  Rom.  i.  4 ;  Heb.  i.  1-4,  xiii.  20,  21  ; 
John  XX.  30,  31).  It  seems  evident  that  the  kind  of 
influence  Jesus  exerted  on  His  immediate  followers,  unless 
explained  away  as  false  in  its  very  nature,  could  only 
proceed  from  one  who  was,  as  they  beheved  from  the 
first,  more  than  human. 

(2)  The  second  test  question  which  we  must  use  is 
this  :  Did  any  founder  of  these  religions  reveal  the  fact 
that  for  His  own  consciousness  He  was  more  than  a 
human  being  ?  It  is  most  significant  that  no  other 
founder  of  a  religion  did  this  except  Jesus  Christ.  Many 
have  claimed  to  be  inspired  as  teachers  or  prophets,  as 
messianic  warriors  of  the  earthly  sort,  as  representatives 
of  God's  will  in  mundane  government  of  the  people. 
How  many  of  them  had  a  right  to  make  such  claims 
is  not  at  all  the  question  here.  The  one  thing  to  note 
is  that  all  such  claims  fall  infinitely  short  of  those  which 
are  involved  in  the  whole  active  ministry  of  Jesus  as 
well  as  in  some  of  His  explicit  words.  There  are  certain 
functions  which  He  proceeded  to  exercise,  calmly  and 
naturally,  persistently  and  triumphantly,  which  show 
that  He  felt  and  knew  Himself  to  be  mbre  than  a  human 
being.     Even  at  the  risk  of  some  repetition   from    an 

~  85  - 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

earlier  chapter  (Chap.  II.),  we  must  very  briefly  restate 
this  matter  as  follows  : — 

(a)  Jesus  consistently  manifests  the  consciousness 
of  His  perfect  moral  harmony  with  God.  He  never 
testifies  to  any  conversion  through  which  He  had  passed, 
to  any  forgiveness  of  sin  which  He  had  experienced,  to 
any  change  from  unbelief  to  faith,  from  moral  darkness 
to  moral  light.  Yet  this  was  not  due  to  moral  obtuse- 
ness,  such  as  may  be  found  in  many  other  claimants  to 
the  representation  of  God's  will  and  the  solution  of  our 
supreme  problems.  His  words  and  His  Spirit  have 
illuminated  the  awful  hoHness  of  God  and  the  sinfulness 
of  sin  as  nothing  else  in  all  the  history  of  the  human 
conscience  has  done.  And  it  was  He  who  spoke  and 
acted  as  the  sinless  One,  the  One  upon  whom  men 
might  look  and  behold  in  His  character.  His  moral  self, 
the  very  character  of  God.  This  alone,  this  con- 
sciousness of  perfect  harmony  with  God,  sets  Him  in  a 
unique  place  in  the  history  of  man,  and  demands  that 
some  explanation  be  found  for  Him,  as  a  moral  fact, 
which  is  unneeded  in  the  case  of  any  other  man  that 
ever  lived. 

(b)  Jesus,  in  announcing  the  advent  of  the  kingdom 

of  God,  assumed,  as  if  it  were  His  right  and  His  inevitable 

and  obvious  duty  to  do  so,  the  place  of  the  King.     The 

work  of  a  king  is  both  to  announce  and  to  enforce  the 

laws  of  his  realm.     Through   this  work   the  society  is 

organised  in  which  his  subjects  are  to  find  the  meaning, 

the  reality,  and  the  joy  of  their  entire  fife.     And  Jesus 

—  86  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  CHRIST 

never  speaks  as  if  His  society  were  that  of  a  moment 
in  the  history  of  Judaism  or  manldnd.  He  addresses 
Himself  to  man  as  man,  to  human  kind  in  all  the  forms 
and  ranges  of  its  life.  He  exercises  over  His  disciples 
that  rule  which  in  principle  can  only  be  exercised  by 
the  supreme  God  over  the  whole  race.  This  must  for 
His  consciousness  include  the  future  world  as  weU  as 
this,  and  not  only  all  races,  but  all  generations.  What- 
ever limits  were  or  were  not  before  His  earthly  conscious- 
ness as  He  looked  into  the  future,  the  principles  of  a 
universal,  complete,  and  eternal  Kingship  were  in  His 
mind  and  will  when  He  exercised  His  characteristic 
and  unique  power  and  authority,  claimed  his  royal 
rights  and  revealed  His  purposes  as  the  Lord  of  that 
band  of  disciples. 

(c)  The  consciousness  of  His  Kingship  was  involved 
in  or  bound  up  with  His  consciousness  of  the  power  to 
reveal  God.  This  revelation,  as  we  saw  above,  was  not 
made  in  formal  descriptions,  though  He  uttered  what 
were  till  that  time  the  greatest  words  about  God  which 
had  fallen  upon  human  hearts.  This  revelation  was 
contained  in  His  personal  hfe.  It  was  conveyed  to  them 
to  whom  the  Son  willed  to  reveal  the  Father.  He  knew 
Himself  to  stand  in  full  possession  of  the  knowledge  of 
the  Father,  and  He  knew  HimseK  to  stand  in  full 
authority  over  the  destiny  of  men.  In  that  most 
solemn  and  even  dreadful  position  He  cherished  and 
disclosed  the  intention  to  convey,  in  the  only  possible 

way,    namely    through    His    own    deeds,    the    actual 

-  87  - 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

living  communion  of  men  with  God  the  Father.  The 
history  of  the  Christian  consciousness,  at  its  best, 
is  proof  that  this  work  has  been  accompUshed  from 
the  first  even  until  this  hour  indubitably  and 
abundantly. 

(d)  Jesus  was  conscious  that  this  work  of  estabhshing 
new  relations  between  God  and  man  could  not  be  done 
either  by  the  words  of  a  prophet  or  the  deeds  of  an 
earthly  king.  To  get  within  the  relations  of  God  and 
man,  to  make  men  partakers  of  His  moral  standing  before 
God,  He  must  enter  as  completely  as  possible  into  their 
full  experience  yet  without  sin.  This  meant  that  He 
must  die.  Over,  at  any  rate  the  latter  part  of,  His 
ministry  there  rests  the  shadow  of  the  Cross.  That  for 
His  mind  and  will  is  not  His  merely  human  fate.  It  is 
the  climax  of  His  work  of  love.  Always  moving  among 
men  as  one  who  had  "  come  "  into  their  conditions, 
always  speaking,  working,  reproving,  exhorting  as  one 
whose  utmost  love  was  like  the  patience  of  a  God,  He 
yet  knew  that  these  burdens  were  light  compared  with 
that  which  was  looming  before  him.  Strange  and 
recurrent  agonies  of  soul,  precursors  of  the  crucifixion, 
marked  the  closing  months  of  intercourse  with  His 
disciples.  At  last  He  consented  to  be  offered  up,  be- 
cause only  in  dying  could  He  finally  pass  within  the 
moral  relations  of  God  and  man,  to  change  them 
for  ever  both  for  God  and  for  man.  This  element  of 
His    consciousness    has    also    entered    into    the    very 

substance   of    the    Christian   consciousness    from    that 

—  88  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  CHRIST 

day  until  this,  and  must  control  our  estimate  of  His 
Person. 

(e)  Jesus,  even  while  He  lived  amid  the  limitations 
of  a  human  experience,  was  conscious  that  He  must,  at 
the  last  day,  as  it  were  stand  over  against  the  human 
race,  the  representative  of  man  before  God,  and  the 
judge  of  man  on  behalf  of  God.  At  that  day  He  would 
confess  or  deny  individual  men  before  His  Father  in 
heaven.  At  that  day  He  would  exercise  over  all  the 
nations  of  the  earth  the  authority  of  one  whose  know- 
ledge of  them  is  perfect,  and  whose  decision  as  to  their 
final  moral  value  is  itself  final. 

(/)  Jesus  used  two  titles  which  seem  to  express  the 
fulness  of  this  consciousness  that  He  stood  in  relations 
to  Grod  and  man  which  are  divine,  and  which  therefore 
control  the  whole  history  of  man's  moral  relations  with 
God.  No  criticism  has  been  able  to  tear  from  the  gospel 
records  the  fact  that  He  used  the  word  "  Son "  to 
reveal,  if  not  to  describe,  this  consciousness.  He  is 
the  Son  in  relation  to  God  the  Father,  and  He  is  Son  in 
relation  to  our  race.  Son  of  God  and  Son  of  Man.  He 
does  not  expand  or  expound  these  titles.  They  are 
evidently  dear  to  His  soul.  They  utter  His  deepest 
sense  of  reality,  as  to  His  relations  with  God  and  man. 
From  them  as  from  the  double  eyes  of  a  spring,  high  on 
the  mountains,  the  waters  of  His  wondrous  conscious- 
ness pour  forth  suddenly  in  one  full,  pure  river  of  eternal 
life.     When  He  would  assert  His  power  to  reveal  God 

to  men,  He  bases  it  on  this,  that  He  is  the  Son  of  God. 

-  89- 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

When  He  would  assert  His  purpose  to  save  men,  to  give 
His  life  a  ransom  for  many,  or  His  authority  to  forgive 
sins  on  the  earth  as  well  as  to  judge  men  from  the  throne 
of  God,  He  bases  it  all  on  this,  that  He  is  the  Son  of  Man. 
The  paralleUsm  of  the  titles  was  dehberately  estabhshed 
by  Himself,  and  its  meaning  must  be  that  He  was  con- 
scious of  a  relationship  with  the  race  as  a  whole  and  with 
God,  which  no  other  member  of  the  race  could  conceive 
of  himself  as  sustaining. 

It  is  evident,  then,  from  this  brief  sketch  that  the 
super-human  place  assigned  to  Jesus  Christ  from  the 
beginning  by  His  first  disciples  was  not  first  invented 
by  them  out  of  gratitude  and  admiration  for  qualities 
in  Jesus  which  were  merely  human  excellences.  Their 
conception  of  His  functions  in  the  reconcihation  of  man 
with  God  was  derived  from  the  manifestation  of  his  own 
consciousness  in  word  and  deed,  and  was  the  direct  fruit 
of  His  power  to  lead  them  into  living  communion  with 
the  living  and  eternal  God  Himself. 

The  only  way  to  disprove  the  superhuman  quaHty 

of  the  Person  of  Christ  must  consist  in  destroying  the 

application  of  our  two  fundamental  tests  to  Him.     This 

can  be  done  only  if  it  is  made  certain  that  the  apostolic 

experience  of  union  with  God  was  unreal  and  untrue,  or 

that  it  could  be  derived  from  some  other  sources  than 

their  faith  in  Christ  and  His  consciousness  of  power  to 

create  it.    But  this  has  never  yet  been  successfully  proved 

in  the  whole  history  of  antagonism  to  the  Christian 

rehgion. 

—  90  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  CHRIST 

II.  The  Place  of  the  Incarnation  in  Apostolic 
Life  and  Doctrine 

We  must  now  discuss  a  matter  already  briefly  re- 
ferred to  more  than  once,  namely,  the  manner  in  which 
the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  was  promulgated  by  the 
Apostles,  especially  in  its  relation  to  other  central 
Christian  doctrines. 

1 .  Jesus  as  Christ  and  Lord. — Naturally  the  Apostles 
began  their  work  by  announcing  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
was  the  Messiah  for  whose  coming  Israel  had  waited 
long  with  aching  heart.  They  beheved  that  this  ancient 
hope  had  been  given  and  nurtured  by  God  through  the 
prophets,  and  that  He  had  been  directing  the  history  of 
their  race  towards  its  consummation.  Jesus  had  put 
His  seal  upon  that  belief  (Luke  iv.  16-21  ;  Mark  xiv. 
61 ,  62),  and  had  accepted  the  confession  of  the  faith 
that  in  Himself  this  God-given  hope  of  the  Messiah  was 
fulfilled  (Matt.  xvi.  13-20).  The  supreme,  public  proof 
of  His  Messiahship  was  to  be  found,  of  course,  in  the 
Resurrection  and  in  the  gift  of  His  Spirit  to  the  com- 
munity of  believers,  with  the  miracles  which  accom- 
panied and  followed  that  gift  (Acts  ii.-iv.).  But  the 
Messiahship  of  Jesus  was  found  to  coalesce  with  another 
fact,  namely,  His  supreme  lordship  over  human  life. 
To  Him  belonged  all  power  and  authority  in  heaven  and 
on  earth  (Matt,  xxviii.  18  ;  Phil.  ii.  10,  11  ;  Rom.  x.  13). 
Only  those  were  admitted  to  be  true  followers  of  Jesus, 

and  to  be  giving  evidence  of  their  entrance  into  right 

—  91  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

relations  with  God,  who  confessed  with  heart  and  mouth 
and  obedient  Hfe  that  Jesus  was  the  absolute  Lord  of 
their  souls  (1  Cor.  xii.  3  ;  Rom.  x.  9,  13  ;  John  xx.  31). 
An  examination  of  a  few  typical  passages  would  prove 
beyond  all  cavil  that  when  those  apostolic  preachers 
referred  to  the  relations  of  God  and  man,  Christ  as  Lord 
was  always  set  on  the  farther  side  of  the  gulf  which 
separates  the  divine  from  the  human.  Thus  in  Romans 
viii.  1-18  we  have  a  paragraph  in  which  the  new  life  of 
man  in  God  is  very  wonderfully  described.  Here  Jesus 
is  never  referred  to  as  one  of  those  human  beings  in 
whom  this  hfe  has  been  realised.  He  is  named  always 
along  with  God,  and  the  Spirit  of  God,  as  source  of  it. 
Again,  in  the  opening  paragraphs  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Galatians  (i.  1-12)  we  find  the  Apostle  Paul  describing 
the  origin  of  the  gospel  which  he  had  experienced  or 
received,  and  which  he  proclaimed.  He  insists  re- 
peatedly that  this  gospel  did  not  rise  out  of  human 
nature  ("after  man,"  i.  11),  nor  was  it  originated  by 
"  a  man,"  nor  was  it  communicated  to  him  through 
"  a  man  "  (i.  1,  11).  On  the  contrary,  it  came  from  God 
through  Jesus  Christ,  and  came  to  Paul  when  God  re- 
vealed Jesus  Christ  in  and  to  his  own  soul  (i.  12,  15,  16). 
This  principle  is  not  pecuhar  to  Paul,  but  underhes  all 
the  writings  in  the  New  Testament.  Thus  in  1  Peter  we 
find  that  glory  and  dominion  are  ascribed  in  a  tone  of 
worship  and  adoration  to  Jesus  Christ  for  ever  and  ever 
(iv.  11,  V.  11),  and  Christ  as  Redeemer  and  Lord  stands 

over  against  all  those  who  believe  in  His  name  (i.  3,  7, 

—  92  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  CHRIST 

13,  19,  iv.  13,  14,  V.  10  ;  James  ii.  1,  cf.  Ps.  xxiv.  8,  xxix. 
2,  and  cf.  James  v.  11  with  v.  14,  15). 

2.  The  Eternal  Basis  of  Lordship. — It  would  seem 
evident  that  no  human  being,  however  exalted  his 
nature  or  full  his  inspiration,  could  be  made  Lord  of  all. 
That  relation  to  the  world  must  rest  on  his  intrinsic 
qualities  as  superhuman  and  divine.  Hence  the  Apostles 
taught  what  is  called  the  "  pre-existence  "  of  Christ. 
This  means  that  before  His  appearance  among  men 
in  the  form  of  Jesus  He  existed  eternally  in  God.  This 
conception  of  our  Lord  is  set  forth  with  great  freedom 
as  well  as  great  power  by  various  New  Testament 
writers,  especially  when  they  find  themselves  inter- 
preting the  Christian  faith  to  those  who  knew  something 
of,  and  were  intellectually  influenced  by,  the  philosophic 
thought  of  that  generation. 

(1)  Son  of  God. — The  basis  from  which  all  New 
Testament  doctrine  about  the  pre-existence  of  Christ 
starts  is  the  term  Son  of  God  (Rom.  i.  4,  viii.  3  ;  Col. 
i.  13  ;  Heb.  i.  1-4  ;  John  i.  18).  The  Synoptic  Gospels 
show  that,  when  Jesus  began  to  teach,  this  title  was 
used  with  no  very  definite  meaning,  as  a  kind  of  honorific 
appellation  of  the  expected  Messiah.  But  Jesus  adopted 
it  for  Himself  as  the  basis  of  His  work  of  divine  revela- 
tion (Matt.  xi.  25  £f.),  even  while  avoiding  or  discourag- 
ing the  politically  dangerous  and  less  adequate  title  of 
Messiah.  The  latter  was  capable  of  serious  misunder- 
standing if  it  were  thrust  into  the  foreground  of  His 
claims ;  while  the  former,  from  its  previous  vagueness, 

—  93  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

could  easily  be  filled  with  whatever  meaning  He  chose  to 
give  it,  by  His  tone  and  manner  of  employing  it.  In 
the  passages  just  referred  to  Jesus  distinctly  used  this 
term  "  Son  "  in  comparison  with  the  term  "  Father  " 
in  a  way  which  till  that  time  was  without  example. 
The  mutual  knowledge  of  Father  and  Son  is  set  far 
above  the  knowledge  which  can  be  communicated  to 
men.  In  fact,  the  knowledge  which  any  man  received 
of  "  the  Father  "  is  exclusively  a  gift  from  "  the  Son." 
In  the  Fourth  Gospel  we  have  two  interesting  passages 
which  emphasise  the  fact  that  it  was  the  tone  and 
manner  in  which  Jesus  used  these  terms  which  roused 
the  passion  of  the  Jewish  theologians  as  against  a  blas- 
phemer (John  V.  16-18,  X.  27-39).  And,  indeed,  the 
latter  passage  would  indicate  that  He  was  more  anxious 
to  be  explicit  about  the  Sonship  than  about  the  Messiah- 
ship. 

(2)  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. — When,  therefore,  the 
Apostles  set  forth  the  Son  of  God  as  an  Eternal  Being, 
they  do  not  appear  to  be  merely  arguing  of  their  own 
accord  from  His  divinity  to  His  pre-existence,  but  to 
be  reflecting  His  own  consciousness  as  expressed  in 
His  own  words.  They  may  even  be  said  to  argue  from 
His  divine  pre-existence  to  His  saving  power.  Yet 
each  writer  illustrates  the  matter  in  his  own  way,  and 
according  to  the  needs  of  those  whom  he  addressed. 
Thus  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  while 
he  shows  (in  i.  1-4)  his  acquaintance  with  Alexandrine 

modes  of  thought,  yet  bases  his  argument  for  the  deity 

—  94  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  CHRIST 

of  Christ  upon  interpretations  of  the  Old  Testament 
which  his  Jewish  brethren  would  appreciate.  Those 
interpretations  did  not  create  the  doctrine  in  his  mind, 
but  they  supported  it  through  his  belief  in  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  Scriptures  (i.  5,  7,  8,  etc.).  The  fundamental 
argument  of  his  letter  is  based  upon  the  belief  that  the 
Son  of  God  chose  to  be  made  one  with  his  human  brethren 
for  their  salvation.  That  work  of  salvation  indeed 
depends  for  its  whole  efficiency  and  glory  upon  the  fact 
that  it  was  wrought  by  one  whose  very  nature  was  that 
of  "  a  Son  "  towards  God. 

(3)  Pauline  Teaching. — In  the  writings  of  the  Apostle 
Paul  there  are  two  main  classes  of  passages  bearing  on  the 
pre-existence  of  Christ, — those  in  which  it  is  referred  to  as 
a  matter  of  course,  an  idea  understood  and  agreed  upon 
among  Christian  believers,  and  those  in  which  it  is  deliber- 
ately set  forth  as  matter  whose  significance  is  in  dispute. 
To  the  former  class  belong  such  verses  as  Rom.  viii.  3, 
ix.  5  (?) ;  Gal.  iv.  4 ;  2  Cor.  viii.  9,  etc.  But  the  most 
important  of  these  is  in  Phil.  ii.  5-1 1 .  To  the  second  class 
belongs  perhaps  only  one,  the  famous  passage  in  Col.  i. 
13-19,  many  of  whose  phrases  recur  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Ephesians.  Here  the  Apostle  is  evidently  dealing  with  a 
situation  in  which  the  Christians  in  certain  cities  of  Asia 
Minor  were  involved.  They  were  confused  by  certain 
teachers  of  gnostic  philosophy,  who  seemed  ready  to  give 
a  place  of  high  dignity  to  Christ  among  other  beings  or 
principles  or  emanations  of  the  Divine  Nature,  "  princip- 
alities,   powers,    thrones,    dominions,"    and   what    not. 

—  95  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

The  Apostle  meets  the  emergency  by  showing  that  the 
fundamental  problems  of  philosophy  are  met  by  faith  in 
Christ.  Those  problems  concern  the  origin  and  method 
of  creation,  the  basis  and  unity,  the  meaning  and  end  of 
the  universe,  and  they  are  answered  in  Christ.  But  it  is 
of  first  importance  for  our  present  purpose  to  notice  that, 
while  Paul's  language  here  deals  with  a  Greek  situation  in 
terms  which  a  Greek  philosopher  would  understand,  he 
does  not  adapt  or  change  or  even  add  new  and  foreign 
elements  to  his  previous  doctrine  of  Christ  in  order  to  win 
the  assent  of  Gentile  philosophers.  The  basis  of  the 
whole  exposition  is  found  in  the  original  view  of  Christ 
as  the  Son  of  God.  He  is  here  said  to  be  the  "  Son 
of  His  love  "  (ver.  13),  a  phrase  chosen  to  emphasise 
at  once  the  eternal,  personal,  and  ethical  nature  of 
His  being. 

(4)  Johannine  Teaching. — Almost  exactly  the  same 
thing  must  be  said  of  the  method  of  John's  writings .  Even 
though  it  be  admitted  that  the  author  has  been  influenced 
directly  by  the  speculations  of  Philo,the  Jew  of  Alexandria 
who  tried  to  unfold  the  consistency  of  the  divine  revela- 
tion in  the  Old  Testament  with  the  principles  of  Platonic 
philosophy,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  Johannine  doctrine 
of  the  Logos,  or  Word  of  God,  is  born  of  Gentile  influences. 
In  the  great  prologue  (John  i.  1-18)  the  author  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  does  more  than  merely  adopt  a  current 
notion.  He  develops  it  in  a  most  original  and  powerful 
manner    (see    any   good    Commentary    on   the    Gospel 

according    to   John,    or    a    work    on   New    Testament 

-96- 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  CHRIST 

Theology  like  that  of  Dr.  Geo.  B.  Stevens).  But  it 
would  be  a  great  mistake  to  assert  that  the  doctrine 
of  Christ  in  this  Gospel  was  developed  through 
even  the  author's  own  speculations  upon  the  nature 
of  the  Logos.  There  is  nothing  in  his  statements 
about  the  Logos  which  is  not  to  be  found  in  his  state- 
ments about  the  Son  of  God.  Through  that  prologue 
he,  as  it  were,  makes  connection  with  the  world  of  thought 
around  him,  just  as  Paul  does  in  that  first  chapter  of 
Colossians.  The  fact  that  Jesus  was  the  Christ  rested 
upon  the  primary  fact  that  He  was  the  Son  of  God.  As 
the  Son  of  God  he  was  the  "  only-begotten  Son,"  He  was 
in  the  bosom  of  the  Father  (i.  18),  He  existed  "before 
Abraham  was  born  "  (viii.  58),  He  came  forth  from  God 
(xiii.  3),  He  shared  the  glory  of  the  Father  and  His  love 
*'  before  the  world'was  "  (xvii.  5,  24).  It  is  a  matter  of 
great  encouragement  for  all  those  who  to-day  must  take 
the  Christian  message  into  the  atmosphere  of  non- 
Christian  rehgions  and  philosophies,  whether  in  the  East 
or  the  West,  to  find  this  method  deeply  embedded  in  the 
New  Testament.  It  does  not  mean  that  the  Christian 
revelation  is  to  be  twisted  or  adapted  to  other  modes  of 
thought,  but  that  it  is  itself  the  touchstone  of  truth. 
Using  it  with  great  confidence,  sympathy,  and  breadth  of 
mind,  a  man  will  discover  the  truth  in  other  systems, 
release  it  from  error  and  limitation,  develop  its  often 
unsuspected  meanings,  and  make  it  the  means  by  which 
the  absolute  religion  lays  hold  of  hearts  and  minds  so  far 
prepared  for  it. 

7  —97  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

3.  The  Birth  of  Jesus. — That  event  in  which  the  Son 
of  God  became  man,  the  subUme  miracle  of  the  Incar- 
nation, is  described  with  characteristic  variations  by 
the  New  Testament  writers.  As  of  the  death  so  of  His 
coming,  it  is  at  one  time  said  to  be  an  act  of  God  and  again 
an  act  of  the  Son  Himself.  The  Apostle  Paul  says  that 
God  sent  Him  (Rom.  viii.  3 ;  Gal.  iv.  4),  but  he  also  says 
that  Christ  made  Himself  "  poor  "  (2  Cor.  viii.  9),  that  He 
"  emptied  HimseK,  taking  the  form  of  a  servant,  being 
made  in  the  likeness  of  men  "  (Phil.  ii.  7).^  The  same 
double  assertion  is  made  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
(C.  i.  6,  14-17)  and  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  (John  i.  11, 
iii.  16,  etc.).  The  stories  of  the  birth  of  Jesus  in  Matthew 
and  Luke  deal  with  the  mode  by  which  the  Divine 
Person  was  constituted  in  the  midst  of  the  human  family 
from  another  point  of  view.  We  cannot  here  discuss  the 
critical  questions  which  gather  around  these  narratives. 
Two  things  only  fall  to  be  said : 

(a)  It  is  very  remarkable  that  while  the  other  writings 
of  the  New  Testament  make  no  direct  statement 
about  this  matter,  yet  in  their  many  and  varied 
references  to  the  Incarnation  they  make  no  assertion 
which  is  inconsistent  with  the  view  that  lies  behind 
the  accounts  in  Matthew  and  Luke.  The  Apostle  Paul, 
in  his  letter  to  the  Galatians  (iv.  4),  speaks  of  Christ  as  sent 

^  I  have  taken  here  and  elsewhere  the  ordinary  interpretation  of  these 
two  passages  (Phil.  ii.  6  flf.  and  2  Cor.  viii.  9),  making  the  Subject  refer  to 
the  pre-existent  Christ.  Even  if  their  subject  be  the  historical  Christ,  His 
deity  is  none  the  less  implied,  though  the  pre-existence  be  not  explicitly 
asserted. 

-98- 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  CHRIST 

forth  of  God  and  as  born  of  a  woman,  when  it  would  have 
been  easy  and  natural  to  say  that  He  was  born  of  Jewish 
parents  and  therefore  born  under  the  law — the  latter 
being  the  chief  point  he  wished  to  bring  out.  In  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  which  was  written  long  after  the  other 
Gospels,  and  in  the  light  of  their  description  of  Christ,  the 
same  freedom  from  contradiction  must  be  noticed. 

(6)  With  all  their  important  differences  the  two  stories 
of  the  birth  of  Jesus  coincide  in  the  assertion  that  His 
birth  was  the  result  of  the  action  of  the  Spirit  of  God 
in  the  womb  of  Mary.  That  Holy  Spirit,  the  name  for 
the  energy  of  God,  awoke  directly  the  process  by  which 
a  new  man  was  developed,  and  in  doing  so  brought  the 
Divine  Nature  into  fundamental  and  organic  union 
with  the  new  personality.  Because  this  Divine  Self 
had  thus  acted  upon,  and  so  entered  into,  the  condi- 
tions of  the  formation  of  a  human  being,  it  was  natural  and 
indeed  inevitable  that  it  should  experience  the  various 
physiological  and  psychological  stages  of  human  growth. 
From  the  beginning  He  was  the  Holy  One  in  new  and 
unique  relation  with  God.  Even  those  who  reject  it 
merely  because  it  is  a  miracle  must  confess  that  the  idea 
of  the  Person  of  Jesus  Christ  which  these  stories  suggest 
is  most  wonderfully  and  completely  consonant  with  that 
which  is  implied  in  all  the  other  apostolic  references  to 
the  Incarnation,  and  with  that  developed  consciousness 
of  the  Man  Jesus  which  we  have  already  described. 

Put  in  brief,  we  may  say  that  the  New  Testament 
sets  forth  a  most  natural  and,  in  one  sense,  obvious 

—  99  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

view  of  the  Person  of  Christ,  though  it  does  raise  in- 
numerable problems  of  the  utmost  gravity  for  theo- 
logical investigation.  That  view  is  that  the  Son  of  God 
who  lived  eternally  in  God  is  the  same  Person  who 
appeared  as  and  who  was  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  In  the 
minds  of  the  Apostles,  Jesus  Christ  was  not  conceived 
of  as  two  personaUties,  but  as  one,  and  that  the  person- 
ality of  the  Son  of  God.  The  human  nature  of  Jesus 
was  for  them  simply  a  phase  or  form  of  the  personal 
Hfe  and  action  of  a  Divine  Being.  What  seemed  to 
them  so  obvious  has  not  been  regarded  as  incredible 
or  unnatural  or  irrational  by  the  vast  majority  of  Chris- 
tian behevers  since  their  day. 

4.  Incarnation  and  Salvation, — The  whole  New  Testa- 
ment view  of  the  salvation  of  man  is  based  upon  this 
doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ.  There  is  not  a  dis- 
tinctive element  in  it  which  does  not  utterly  disappear 
if  the  Deity  of  Christ  is  denied.  His  perfect  sympathy 
with  man,  even  His  capacity  for  that  sympathy,  is  not 
obscured,  as  opponents  of  this  faith  allege,  by  the  faith 
in  His  God-manhood.  Nay  rather,  the  Incarnation 
is  the  signal  and  supreme  proof  of  a  sympathy  whose 
perfection  of  beauty  and  power  and  tenderness  can 
never  be  paralleled  by  any  other  act  of  God  or  rivalled 
in  the  conduct  of  man  to  man  (John  i.  16,  17  ;  1  John 
ii.  1  ;  2  Cor.  viii.  9  ;  Heb.  ii.  17,  18,  iv.  14-16).  The 
mind  of  Christ  in  its  pure  love,  in  its  self-denial,  in  its 
prolonged  persistence  in  sacrifice,  is  to  be  measured 
by  the  same  unearthly  standard.     He  gave  up  more 

—   IQO  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  CHRIST 

than  one  can  understand  when  He  laid  aside  the  "  form 
of  God  "  and  assumed  the  "  fashion  of  a  man,"  going 
down  ^through  stage  after  stage  of  deprivation  until 
He  hung  dead  upon  the  bitter  tree  (Phil.  ii.  5-11).  The 
full  ethical  quahty  of  the  work  of  Christ  is  derived,  as 
all  ethical  quahty  must  be,  from  the  quaUty  of  His 
Person,  from  the  whole  sum  of  relations  in  which  He 
consciously  acted. 

It  is  a  shallow  though  a  common  assumption  of  the 
opponents  of  this  faith,  that  the  appeal  of  the  character 
and  experience,  the  hohness  and  sacrifice  of  Jesus, 
would  be  enhanced  if  He  were  shorn  of  His  divinity. 
The  supreme  force  of  the  gospel,  its  primary 
appeal  to  the  human  heart  and  conscience,  is  to  be 
found  in  this  very  fact  that  in  Him  the  Son  of 
the  Eternal  God  had  appeared  among  men  for  their 
salvation,  that  He  might  bring  them  to  the  peace  and 
pardon  of  God.  The  whole  moral  value  of  the  story 
of  Christ  rests  upon  the  background  of  that  journey 
from  the  Throne  to  the  Cross.  It  does  not  consist  in 
this,  that  from  Nazareth  to  Calvary  one  more  noble 
pilgrim  soul  went,  through  the  well-known  road  of  pro- 
phetic service  and  ethical  enthusiasm,  to  rejection  and 
contumely  and  an  unjust  execution.  It  consists  in  this, 
that  one  who  was  removed  far  above  our  earthly  nature 
and  sin  and  sorrow  identified  Himself  with  us,  entered 
into  our  struggle,  bore  our  shame,  and  did  it  all  because 
He  felt  for  us,  loved  us,  and  saw  that  only  in  this  way 

could  He  become  our  deliverer.     Take  Christ's  difference 
—   lOI  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

from  us  out  of  Christianity  and  His  identity  with  us 
loses  all  its  glorious  power. 

5.  The  Love  of  God. — Not  only  so,  the  Incarnation 
as  the  path  to  the  Cross,  or  the  Cross  which  the  Incar- 
nation made  possible,  is  the  supreme  assurance  to  men 
of  the  love  of  Almighty  God.  The  great  affirmation 
that  "  God  is  love  "  was  not  due  to  a  flash  of  insight 
into  the  ultimate  nature  of  things  by  the  unaided  or 
even  the  inspired  mind  of  an  Oriental  mystic.  It  was 
derived  directly  from  the  conviction,  based  on  historic 
facts,  that  God  had  sent  His  Son  to  be  the  propitiation 
for  our  sins  (see  context  of  1  John  iv.  8  ;  cf .  Rom.  v.  5-8, 
viii.  31-38).  Moreover,  the  history  of  thought  has  proved 
abundantly  that  outside  of  this  foundation,  except  among 
sentimental  and  fluctuating  circles  which  revel  in  Chris- 
tian feeling  divorced  from  Christian  doctrine,  the  con- 
science and  reason  of  man  can  find  no  permanent  and 
impregnable  ground  for  belief  in  the  cleansing  mercy, 
the  measureless  pity  of  God.  "  God  so  loved  the  world 
that  He  gave  His  only-begotten  Son  "  (John  iii.  16) ; 
God  "spared  not  His  own  Son,  but  delivered  Him  up. 
for  us  all "  (Rom.  viii.  32), — such  words  take  us  to  the 
heart  of  all  things.  Other  roads  may  be  tried,  but  they 
are  circuitous,  hazardous,  and  lead  through  darkness 
amid  many  contrary  voices.  But  to  those  who  believe 
in  the  abundant  proof  of  the  Deity  of  Christ  the  way 
is  clear  and  open,  the  journey  is  swift  to  the  throne 
of  the  eternal  Fatherhood,  the  home  of  the  love  which 

passeth  knowledge  and  perfects  human  joy. 

—   102  — 


^^^■P  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  CHRIST 

^K  6.  Incarnation  and  the  Finality  of  the  Gospel. — Lastly, 

^H       let  it  be  said  that  the  absoluteness  and  finality  of  the 

^K       Christian  religion  must  rest  on  this  as  one  of  its  great 

^B       foundation-stones.     Even    God    can    do    no    more    for 

^^       men  than  thus  to  become  Himself  a  subject  of  human 

conditions    and   human   experience.     If   He   has    done 

this,  then  belief  in  it  is  the  final  religion.     This  one  fact, 

and  faith  in  it,  must  spread  over  the  world  till  before 

its  glory  all  other  dreams  of  gods  and  salvations  and 

worships  and   paths  of  peace  fade,  as  all  dreams  do 

when  sunlight  has  lifted  our  eyelids.     This  fact  of  the 

Incarnation    concerns    all    men    infinitely    more    even 

than  food  and  drink.     It  must  be  the  will  of  God  that 

it  should  be  known  to  all. 


III.  Explanations  of  the  Person  of  Christ 

We  must  very  briefly  glance  at  the  manner  in  which 
Christian  thought  has  attempted  to  interpret  the  fact 
of  the  Divine-human  Person  of  Christ.  The  work  of 
the  early  Church  upon  this  subject  was  prolonged  and 
most  thorough.  In  its  course  every  possible  logical  solu- 
tion of  the  problem  was  attempted,  and  each  attempt 
was  tried  in  the  light  not  only  of  the  words  of  Scripture, 
but  of  the  fundamental  nature  of  the  Christian  salva- 
tion. Any  view  of  the  Person  of  Christ  was  rejected 
which  seemed  to  impair  the  reaUty  either  of  His  divine 
or  His  human  nature,  and  that  because  it  would  endanger 

faith   in  the  actual  and  immediate  self-revelation  of 
-—  103  ■— 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

God,  or  in  the  completeness  and  power  of  the  work  of 
redemption.  If  He  was  not  God,  then  God  is  still  un- 
known ;  if  He  was  not  man,  then  human  nature  has  not 
yet  been  perfected  even  in  one  instance,  and  human  sin 
has  not  been  done  to  death  by  that  one  on  behalf  of  all. 

(1)  It  seems  natural  that  at  first  there  should  have 
been  an  attempt  to  view  the  divine  in  Christ  as  a  tem- 
porary union,  accomplished  at  His  baptism  by  a  kind 
of  inspiration,  perhaps  withdrawn  at  the  Cross,  to 
relieve  the  Holy  One  from  the  shame  of  death,  resumed 
and  completed  at  the  Resurrection.  But  such  a  theory 
was  too  shallow  to  go  far,  and  was  soon  left  behind. 
It  is  curious  to  find  it  revived  and  modified  to-day  in 
the  interests  of  a  section  of  theosophy  which  is  trying  in 
vain  to  call  itself  Christian. 

(2)  It  was  inevitable,  again,  that  some  should  arise  to 
maintain  that  two  individualities,  that  of  the  Son  of  God 
and  that  of  the  Son  of  Man,  were  united  not  substanti- 
ally or,  so  to  speak,  physically,  but  by  an  ethical  bond. 
The  will  of  God  so  prepared  the  nature  of  Jesus  that 
what  the  Son  of  God  willed  He  willed,  what  He  did  or 
thought  or  said  was  the  word  or  act  of  the  Son  of  God, 
who  was  thus  inwardly  and  in  an  unbreakable  sym- 
pathy bound  up  with  His  personal  life.  But  this 
view  was  also  seen  to  be  too  vague.  It  gave  us  two 
personalities  linked  by  an  unusual  and  precarious 
nexus,  two  lives  and  not  one,  even  though  they  were 
intimately    associated.     What    the    Apostles    describe, 

and  what  the  Gospels  set    forth,  concerning  the  con- 

—  104  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  CHRIST 

sciousness  and  experience  of  Jesus  as  the  Son  of  God, 
cannot  be  made  to  resemble  this  uncertain  picture. 

(3)  It  was  natural,  again,  that  in  revolt  from  this 
theory,  and  in  order  to  obtain  a  real  union  of  the  divine 
and  human,  one  or  the  other  side  should  be  subtracted 
from.  Though  the  Arians  do  not  seem  to  have  pro- 
mulgated a  definite  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation,  yet 
their  theory  that  the  Son  of  God  was  not  eternal  and 
therefore  divine  in  the  full  sense,  but  the  first  and 
greatest  Creature  of  God,  may  have  seemed  to  many 
to  make  His  coming  in  the  flesh  more  easy  of  explana- 
tion. On  the  other  hand,  very  important  and  suggestive 
work  was  done  by  those  (hke  Apolhnaris)  who  taught 
that  in  the  Person  of  Christ  a  certain  element  (namely,  the 
human  spirit)  was  absent,  and  its  place  was  taken  by 
the  corresponding  nature  of  the  Logos.  Here  we  go 
much  deeper  and  come  into  the  presence  of  an  organic 
and  vital  union  of  the  human  and  the  divine.  But  put 
in  this  form  it  seemed  still  to  impair  the  completeness 
of  the  human  nature  of  Christ,  and  therefore  to  render 
His  redemption  of  that  nature  also  incomplete. 

(4)  The  logic  of  the  early  Church  culminated  in 
what  is  known  as  the  Decree  of  Chalcedon  (a.d.  451). 
In  this  important  statement  it  was  insisted  upon  that 
in  Jesus  Christ  two  natures  were  present,  the  divine  and 
the  human  ;  each  was  real  and  each  was  complete. 
The  union  of  these  two  natures  was  not  temporary, 
nor  merely  ethical,  but  for  ever  indissoluble.     Neither 

t  suffered  any  loss  in  order  to  be  capable  of  union 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

with  the  other,  and  the  two  were  not  merely  mixed  or 
mingled  with  one  another,  but  each  preserved  its  distinct 
characteristics.  In  what  then  were  the  two  natures  made 
one  ?  The  answer  is,  in  "  one  Person  or  Substance," 
and  that  the  Person  or  Substance  of  the  Son  of  God. 

It  must  be  freely  admitted  that  this  decree,  although 
it  forms  the  high-water  mark  of  thought  in  the  ancient 
Church  on  this  great  subject,  does  not  give  a  real  and  com- 
plete solution  of  the  problem.  Its  value  has  been  mainly 
twofold, — first,  in  that  it  condemned  the  inadequate 
theories  which  threatened  the  integrity  and  reality  of 
the  Incarnation ;  and,  second,  in  that  it  fixed  attention 
upon  the  thought  that  the  Person  of  Christ  is  the  very 
self  of  the  eternal  Son  of  God,  that  the  mystery  of  the 
Personality  of  Jesus  is  a  new  form  of  the  indwelling  of 
God  in  human  nature.  The  idea  which  lies  behind  it,  that 
you  can  distinguish  between  a  substance  and  its  quali- 
ties or  between  a  person  and  the  "nature"  through  which 
he  realises  himself  and  in  which  he  lives,  may  be  due  to 
a  crude  psychology  or  a  faulty  metaphysic.  But  even  in 
modern  times  there  is  no  general  consent  on  these  matters. 

For  long   centuries,   and  apart  from   a  few   minor 

controversies  on  this  subject,  the  Church  was  content 

to  abide  by  the  decision  reached  at  Chalcedon.     The 

fathers    of    the    Reformation    in    general    accepted   it. 

During  last  century  the  attention  of  scholars  has  been 

mainly  given  to  the  work  of  critically  investigating  the 

literature  of  the  New  Testament,  and  endeavouring  to 

reconstruct    the    origins    of    Christianity    with    great 

—  io6  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  CHRIST 

thoroughness  and  fulness  of  detail.  The  result  has  been 
to  delay  the  attempt  to  give  a  full  and  thorough  restate- 
ment of  this  doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ  until  com- 
paratively recent  days.  For  an  account  of  the  modern 
theories  of  Christ,  such  as  the  kenotic  theories,  which 
try  to  describe  the  Incarnation  as  a  process  of  "  Self- 
emptying  "  (Phil.  ii.  5-11),  in  which  the  Son  of  God  laid 
aside  His  divine  attributes  in  order  to  assume  the  status 
of  a  human  being ;  or  the  Ritschlian,  which  insist  that 
we  must  be  content  to  treat  Christ  as  having  for  us  the 
practical  value  of  God  without  speculating  either  about 
His  eternal  nature  or  the  mode  of  His  appearing  as  man ; 
or  the  easier  and  shallower  notion  that  in  all  men  there 
is  a  divine  indwelling,  and  in  Jesus  the  Divine  dwelt  in 
the  highest  degree  of  which  man's  nature  is  capable, — 
recourse  must  be  had  to  other  works. 

It  is  sufficient  even  if  we  have  shown  here  that  the 
solution  of  the  Christological  problem,  though  advanced 
much  beyond  the  earliest  and  crudest  attempts,  is  far 
from  being  yet  attained.  Just  because  the  fact  is  so 
real,  so  great,  so  full  of  meaning  and  power  for  the  whole 
development  of  our  race,  it  not  only  wins  our  faith  but 
challenges  our  reason  to  fresh  study  of  the  manner  of 
it.  He  stands  to-day  before  the  faith  of  the  Church  as 
the  God-man  who  came  forth  from  God's  great  love  in 
God's  great  wisdom,  that  in  His  own  will  and  mind,  in 
His  own  love  and  sorrow,  the  mystery  of  the  Divine 
mercy  might  be  disclosed  to  the  heart  and  conscience 

of  the  whole  race  of  mankind. 

—  107  — 


CHAPTER   V 

THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  SIN  AND  EVIL 

i^NE  of  the  most  famous  books  in  Christian  theology 
^^  is  entitled  Cur  Deus  Homo  ("  Why  God  became 
man").  Its  author,  St.  Anselm,  argued  that  a  fact  so 
transcending  all  other  events  in  history,  as  the  Incarna- 
tion does,  must  have  a  reason  or  purpose  of  corresponding 
greatness.  We  can  only  believe  that  God  became  man  in 
the  Person  of  Jesus  Christ  if  we  see  that  He  has  thus 
done  something  which  could  not  have  been  done  in 
any  simpler  and  less  astounding  manner.  Now,  the  only 
object  worthy  of  this  miracle  above  all  miracles  must  be 
the  salvation  of  mankind.  This  is  the  purpose  by  which 
Jesus  Himself  explained  His  appearing  among  men, — 
"  The  Son  of  man  is  come  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which, 
was  lost  "  (Luke  xix.  10),  "  The  Son  of  Man  hath  power 
on  earth  to  forgive  sins  "  (Mark  ii.  10),  "  The  Son  of  Man 
came  to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for  many  "  (Mark  x.  45). 
The  whole  of  the  New  Testament  is  filled  with  this  truth, 
that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  Saviour  from  sin  and  death  unto 
righteousness  and  life  eternal.  And  wherever  the  gospel 
has  been  carried  or  is  being  carried  this  is  its  central 

message,  that  the  Supreme  Deliverer  has  come.     Before 

—  io8  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  SIN  AND  EVIL 

we  examine  the  mode  of  this  deliverance  we  must  study 
this  fact  of  sin,  the  situation  of  man  which  made  so  great 
a  work  on  his  behalf  necessary. 


I.  "  Something  Wrong  "  with  the  Race 

1.  Proved  even  by  Enemies  of  Religion. — It  might  go 
without  saying  almost,  that  the  whole  history  of  man 
bears  witness,  though  in  varjang  ways  and  degrees,  to 
his  sense  of  sin.  No  reUgion  has  arisen  which  does  not 
in  some  manner  imply  it.  Indeed,  the  very  denial  of 
religion  is  the  assertion  that  man,  by  having  a  religion 
at  all,  has  always  and  everywhere  gone  wrong.  The 
reUgious  man  beheves  that  man  is  in  distress,  and  the 
denier  of  rehgion  insists  that  this  behef,  universal  as  it 
has  been,  is  itself  the  supreme  error  and  the  mother  of 
much  misery.  Both  believe  that  the  true  path  of  Hfe  has 
been  somehow  missed,  and  heavy  penalties  have  been  paid 
for  the  blunder. 

Now,  this  is  a  most  startHng  set  of  facts,  especially  if 

we  are  to  explain  the  universe,  as  many  try  to  do,  by  some 

formula  of  natural  evolution.     For  the  doctrine  which 

has  had  most  vogue  would  teach  us  that  no  species  of 

Uving  things  can  arise  except  as  it  is  in  harmony  with  its 

environment.   But  here  we  find  the  testimony  unanimous, 

that  the  species  called  man  is  infected  with  fatal  error  at 

the  root  of  its  distinctive  life  and  throughout  its  history. 

If  religion  be  true,  then  the  voice  of  all  rehgions  tells  us 

that  he  is  at  discord  with  his  spiritual  environment,  and  his 
—  109  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

moral  or  social  miseries  arise  from  that  misfortune.  If 
religion  is  all  based  on  falsehood,  we  still  have  the  same 
fact  that  man  is  not  in  harmony  with  his  real  environ- 
ment, if  only  for  this  desolating  reason,  that  he  has 
deluded  and  distressed  himself  with  the  invention  of  a 
spiritual  environment  which  has  no  foundation  except  in 
his  diseased  imagination.  It  does  not  help  in  the  least  to 
urge  in  support  of  the  latter  theory  that  it  is  the  posses- 
sion of  a  reasoning  power  that  has  thus  put  man  wrong. 
For  in  that  case  a  merely  naturalistic  evolution  would 
have  the  impossible  task  of  explaining,  how  nature  could 
produce  from  her  system  of  facts  a  form  of  reason  which 
could  so  completely  and  disastrously  disarrange  that 
system  and  destroy  the  life  it  had  evolved. 

2.  Due  to  Man^s  Spiritual  Nature. — All  rehgions 
assume  or  teach  that  this  discord  in  man's  life  rises  from  his 
possession  of  a  spiritual  nature,  through  which  he  is  con- 
sciously connected  with  a  divine  power  or  powers  above 
him.  Whether  it  be  the  poor  fetich-worshipper,  striving 
to  avert  the  hostility  of  invisible  enemies  by  wearing  his 
charms  ;  or  the  worshipper  of  a  family,  or  tribal,  god 
seeking  to  retain  his  friendship  by  sharing  their  food  with 
him,  or  to  placate  him  by  costly  sacrifices  ;  or  the  Hindu 
persuading  himself  that  the  universe  is  full  of  Hving  beings 
who  are  at  once  the  victims  and  the  instruments  of  the 
cruel  and  relentless  wheel  of  existence  ;  or  the  monotheist 
believing  in  the  supreme  God  whose  laws  of  inexorable 
righteousness  have  been  broken  by  all  men, — these  all 

accept  it  as  a  fact  that  man  is  related  with  a  superhuman 

—  no  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  SIN  AND  EVIL 

realm  of  intelligences  who  control  his  life  here  and  here- 
after, and  that  his  relations  with  that  realm  have  been 
disturbed  somehow,  to  his  deep  and  perplexing  and 
infinite  loss.  Wherever  the  Christian  gospel  is  carried, 
it  finds  the  human  heart  ever  ready  to  confess  that  such 
deep  wrong  exists, and  that  a  great dehverance  is  required. 


II.  Evil,  Suffering,  and  Sin 

It  is  important  to  distinguish  between  what  religion 
calls  sin  and  that  wider  word  "  evil  "  with  which  it  is  often 
confused.  It  is  the  confusion  which  Buddhism  creates 
at  this  point  that  has  rendered  its  method  of  dealing 
with  the  situation  of  man  so  inadequate.  This  doctrine, 
as  we  have  seen,  assumes  that  the  first  matter  to  deal 
with  is  the  fact  of  suffering.  Suffering  is  found  every- 
where in  the  sentient  world,  and  appears  to  the  impatient 
soul  as  the  fundamental  wrong.  The  aim  of  man  must 
therefore  be,  the  Buddhist  holds,  to  inquire  what  are  the 
causes  of  suffering,  and  then  what  are  the  means  by  which 
they  may  be  avoided  or  defeated.  That  is  his  religion,  the 
kind  of  salvation  he  hopes  and  works  for.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  Christian  position  is  that  natural  suffering  is  a 
wider  fact  than  sin,  and  indeed  an  altogether  different 
kind  of  fact,  due  to  other  causes  and  having  other  results. 
Our  religion  does  not  call  us  to  deal  immediately  and 
primarily  with  suffering,  but  with  sin.  It  teaches  us 
that  the  great  deliverance  proclaimed  in  the  gospel  can  be 

realised  even  by  those  who  continue  in  this  life  to  suffer, 
—  in  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

while  of  course  it  also  teaches  us  to  set  our  hope  on  that 
final  state  in  another  world  where  all  suffering  shall  have 
ceased  to  affect  us. 

1.  Evil  in  Nature. — This,  then,  is  to  be  carefully- 
marked,  that  evil  is  a  wider  term  than  sin.  There  are 
forms  of  evil  which  cannot  be  called  "  sin  "  and  may- 
have  nothing  to  do  with  sin,  while  all  sin  must,  on  the 
other  hand,  be  called  a  form  of  evil.  It  is  then  described 
as  moral  evil.  The  term  "  evil  "  seems  best  understood, 
when  it  is  referred  to  in  general,  as  that  which  opposes  in 
any  individual  the  will  to  live,  and  by  this  opposition 
causes  pain  or  suffering.  It  used  to  be  thought  appro- 
priate to  apply  this  word  "  evil  "  to  such  facts  in  the 
physical  universe  as  earthquakes  or  mighty  storms  or  the 
colUsions  of  stars,  and  some  writers  still  do  so.  It  is 
clear,  however,  that  these  events  cannot  in  themselves  be 
truly  called  evil.  They  only  become  evil  in  their  effects 
upon  living  beings.  When  we  consider  the  plant  world, 
some  would  maintain  that  evil  certainly  reigns  there, 
because  we  find  there  the  phenomena  of  decay  and 
death.  But  our  modern  evolutionary  science  has 
proved  decay  and  death  among  plants  to  be  important 
conditions  of  evolution.  The  rustle  of  faded  leaves, 
the  withered  flowers,  the  mossy  consuming  of  fallen 
trees,  these  are  not  pathetic  incidents  in  the  history 
of  forest  and  field.  The  pathos  which  we  feel  as  we 
watch  them  is  the  shadow  of  man's  sorrow,  and  it  falls 
athwart  our  own  hearts.  It  is  no  part  of  their  being. 
These  beautiful  things  lived,  so  far  as  we  knowj  without 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  SIN  AND  EVIL 

feeling,  and  they  perished  only  that  more  of  their  kind 
might  flourish.  In  such  decay  and  death  there  is  no 
evil ;  it  is  the  very  wonder  and  wisdom  and  power  of 
the  art  of  God. 

It  is  in  the  world  of  things  which  not  only  live  but 
feel  that  the  fact  of  evil  in  any  true  sense  begins  to 
appear.  For  that  which  can  feel  at  all  seems  always  to 
be  capable  of  feeling  pleasure  and  pain.  In  so  far  as 
it  feels  pleasure  it  is  in  conscious  possession  of  life ; 
in  so  far  as  pain  assails  it  the  grip  on  hfe  becomes 
insecure.  Constituted  as  we  are,  and  within  the  limit 
of  our  knowledge,  we  cannot  but  call  that  evil  which 
thus  causes  pain  and  struggle  and  at  last  death  to  a 
form  of  life  which  once  in  any  measure  rejoiced  in  life. 
And  yet  even  here  we  must  note  the  use  of  that  word 
*  measure.'  It  is  an  easy  trick  of  thought,  when  we  speak 
of  pain  and  death,  to  sweep  our  measures  of  these  over 
all  the  sentient  creation.  There  are  degrees  of  sensi- 
bihty  both  to  pain  and  pleasure.  We  see  the  signs  of 
feeling  in  the  lowest  forms  of  animal  hfe,  but  we  have 
no  reason  to  call  their  consciousness  intense.  Rather 
have  we  every  reason  for  regarding  pain  and  pleasure 
in  the  amoeba,  or  the  shell-fish,  or  even  in  more  highly 
organised  forms  than  these,  extremely  slight.  They 
have  neither  the  complex  organs  nor  the  complex  hves 
which  create  or  require  intensity  in  their  feelings.  And 
yet  again,  in  spite  of  that  deceptive  shadoAV  of  our  own 
life,  that  anthropomorphism  which  we  throw  into  the 
phrases  "  the  struggle  for  existence,"  the  "  survival  of 
—  113  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

the  fit,"  "  the  extinction  of  the  unfit,"  we  must  beware 
of  thinking  that  they  imply  the  universaUty  of  pain. 
Some  competent  observers  of  nature  beUeve  that  the 
vast  majority  of  sentient  creatures  hardly  ever  experi- 
ence pain,  and  that  death  comes  to  them  first  with  the 
benumbing  of  their  power  to  feel,  and  then  with  the 
gentle  loosening  of  the  subtle,  inner  bond  between  Hfe 
and  matter.  And  evolutionary  science  has  been  sug- 
gesting to  us  that  even  in  this  world  of  animal  life,  death 
is  one  of  the  primary  causes  or  conditions  both  of  the 
multiplication  of  sentient  beings  and  of  their  gradual 
advance  towards  higher  and  richer  forms. 

2.  Evil  in  Human  Experience. — When  we  come 
to  the  human  race  we  enter  a  world  in  which  all  the 
standards  must  be  changed.  It  is  true  that  man  is 
bound  up  on  one  side  of  his  nature  with  the  history 
of  the  animal  world,  and  therefore  it  will  not  do  to  say 
that  pain  and  death  are  only  evil  even  for  him.  Here, 
too,  they  must  have  their  beneficent  meaning  and 
power.  Some  part  of  this  we  can  perhaps  descry  when 
we  remember  that  pain  is  a  stimulus,  in  some  degrees 
of  it,  that  even  death  has  its  high  uses  for  the  develop- 
ment of  man's  ideal  nature.  It  is  not  right  to  assert 
that  they  are  thoroughly  evil  unless  we  have  proved 
that  the  suffering  of  pain  and  death  brings  no  benefit  to 
the  life  of  the  individual  and  the  race.  And  that  can- 
not be  proved. 

It   may   be    urged   against    this    mode    of    speech, 

that  it  involves  too  easy  and  shallow  an  optimism, 

—  114  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  SIN  AND  EVIL 

that  the  darkness  under  which  man  has  lived  cannot 

be  so  quickly  dispersed,  that  the  fact  of  evil  is  too 

black  and  universal  and  bewildering  to  be  removed  by 

denying  that  it  is  true.     But  the  answer  must  be,  that 

such  criticism  comes  too  soon.     What  we  have  been 

tr3dng  to  do  is  to  discover  the  true  seat  and  nature  of 

that  harsh  discord,  that  grievous  sense  of  irremediable 

wrong  which  marks  the  whole  story  of  man,  and  which 

seems  to  grow  more  harsh  and  more  grievous  as  he 

rises  higher  in  mental  and  moral  attainments.     It  does 

not  at  all  lessen  the  burden  of  evil  to  see  how  prone 

men  have  been  to  extend  its  shadow  and  imagine  its 

pang  in  regions  where  fuller  knowledge  shows  that  it 

does  not  exist  as  man  sees  it,  nor  is  felt  as  man  feels 

it.     Rather  this  line  of  reflection  compels  us  to  seek 

in  man's  own  consciousness  for  the  origin  of  evil  in 

its  full  and   dark   horror.     The  sympathy  we  feel  for 

animals  when  they  die,  the  pity  for  their  pain,  is  not 

the  result  of  calm  inquiry  into  the  amount  of  their 

sufferings  or  into  the  real  value  of  these  facts  in  the 

economy  of  natural  evolution.     We  simply  attribute  to 

them  what  pain  and  death  have  come  to  mean  to  us. 

If  modern  science  has  made  it  clear  that  the  measure 

of  evil  which  does  exist  in  the  form  of  actual  pain  in 

the  sentient  world  is  not  devoid  of  meaning  or  utility, 

it  has  helped  to  define  with  more  sharpness  the  real  and 

dreadful  burden  under  which  the  spirit  of  man  groans, 

and  which  has  made  the  whole  world  seem  to  him  to 

be  groaning  tinder  a  like  infinite  weight  of  affliction.    The 
—  115  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

human  burden  in  its  innermost  reality  is  not  physical 

but  moral  evil.     In  man  we  have  a  being  who  does  not 

merely  pass  from  one  moment  to  another  of  sensation, 

whether  it  be  pain  or  pleasure,  a  being  who  does  not 

take  death  tacitly  as  one  more  swift  spasm  and  pass 

away  unaware  and  unregretted.     He  is  possessed  of  all 

those  qualities  and  powers  which  give  him  memory  and 

expectation,  which  enable  him  to  look  at  life  as  something 

to  be  considered  and  dealt  with  by  him  in  its  wholeness. 

He  cherishes  a  love  which  death  wrongs  with  a  deep 

and  lasting  sorrow ;  he  possesses  standards  of  value,  of 

virtue,  which  death  in  vain  has  threatened  to  shatter. 

He  feels  that  he  cannot  live  as  a  rational  human  being 

if  he  live  only  as  an  animal,  for  the  passion  of  the  hour 

or  even  for  the  pleasures  of  a  short  lifetime.     He  judges 

his  life  from  a  point  of  view  above  and  beyond  death, 

and  realises  that  the  visible  universe  does  not  exhaust 

his  environment  nor  afford  him  full  opportunity  for 

using  all  his  powers  in  their  ideal  range  and  meaning. 

Every  noble  system  of  thought,  every  lofty  ideal  of 

duty  known  to  history,  is  a  full  and  authoritative  witness 

to  the  truth  of  these  statements.     When  the  Buddhist, 

in  spite  of  his  agnosticism  about  God,  yet  affirmed  that 

man's  life  cannot  be  understood  within  the  Hmits  of 

his  earthly  birth  and  death,  he  bore  this  witness.     When 

the  Stoic,  in  recoil  from  the  weakling  fury  of  some  and 

the  weakHng  self-abandonment  of  others,  set  himself 

to  discover  the  inner  reason  which  informs  the  universe 

and  planted  his  life  on  the  scale  of  that  reason,  with  a 

—  Ii6  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  SIN  AND  EVIL 

self-respect  which  would  neither  acknowledge  defeat  of 
his  strong  will  by  adversity  nor  court  it  by  animal 
indulgence,  whether  he  was  Marcus  Aurehus  or  Thomas 
Huxley,  he  bore  the  same  witness.  Man  as  a  moral 
and  a  rational  being  is  allied  with  and  related  to  a 
system  of  facts  with  which  the  animal  consciousness 
has  no  responsive  relation.  It  is  this  fact  of  universal 
moral  evil,  this  consciousness  which  pervades  all  human 
history  that  something  is  wrong  at  the  very  root  of  man's 
true  life,  which  is  interpreted  by  Christianity  as  sin. 


III.  The  Doctrine  of  Sin  in  the  Old  Testament 

1.  Derived  from  Monotheism. — In  the  Old  Testament 

we  have  the  deepest  teaching  about  moral  evil  which 

the  world  had  ever  heard  before  the  coming  of  Christ. 

The  reason  for  this  fact  is  to  be  found  in  the  teaching 

of  the  prophets  about  God.     Their  Monotheism  led  to 

their  doctrine  of  man  and  of  sin.     At  first,  no  doubt,  the 

Hebrews  understood  by  sin,  as  other  Semitic  tribesmen 

did,  any  act  of  disloyalty  performed  by  the  tribe,  or  a 

member  of  it,  towards  its  particular  god.     Such  breaches 

of   law  would   consist   in  failure  to  perform  duly  the 

customary  religious  ceremonies,  or  in  doing  anything 

which  had  been  placed  under  "  the  ban  "  (as  in  the  case 

of  Achan).     But  with  the  rise  of  prophetism,  and  from 

the  days  of  Moses  onward,  a  new  element  was  introduced. 

For,  as  we  saw  before,  Jehovah,  the  God  of  Israel,  made 

Himself  known  more  and  more  clearly  as  the  righteous 
—  11/  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

One,  as  a  Being  who  attached  infinite  importance  to 
the  ideal  of  faithfulness,  who  would  neither  do  nor  brook 
injustice,  who  therefore  looked  for  inward  loyalty  among 
His  people.  He  demanded  that  they  should  depend 
wholly  on  His  might  and  His  truth.  They  must  never 
forsake  this  trust  nor  doubt  His  gracious  loyalty  to  them, 
however  dark  their  days  might  be,  however  great  the 
enemies  that  conquered  them.  Thus  the  relation  of 
God  and  His  people  was  transferred  from  the  region  of 
outward  and  formal  ceremoniaHsm  to  that  of  inner 
moral  purposes.  Jehovah  called  for  "  mercy  and  not 
sacrifice  " ;  He  had  regard  to  those  who  "  did  justly 
and  loved  mercy  and  walked  humbly  with  their 
God." 

The  Ten  Commandments  have  always,  and  rightly, 
been  regarded  as  of  great  significance  at  this  point. 
For  even  though  we  allow  that  their  form,  being  in  the 
main  negative  (Thou  shalt  not),  and  referring  principally 
to  outward  action,  was  imperfect,  we  must  emphasise 
the  fact  that  they  do  bear  upon  the  sphere  of  personal 
relations  with  man  and  with  God.  They  are  ethical 
and  not  ceremonial,  spiritual  or  personal  and  not 
formal  or  mechanical. 

2.  The  Later  Prophets. — It  was  with  that  sphere  of 

the  personal  and  ethical  that  the  great  prophets  were 

almost  entirely  concerned.     For  them  Jehovah  was  the 

true  King  of  Israel.     He  made  known  His  will,  the  will 

of  unquestionable  righteousness,  and  that  was  the  law 

of  Israel.    To  that  will  the  laws  and  customs  of  His 

—  ii8  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  SIN  AND  EVIL 

people  should  conform.  In  the  light  of  that  will  kings 
should  reign,  judges  decree  justice,  citizens  conform  the 
aims  and  habits  of  their  Hves.  Social  greed  and  corrup- 
tion, tyranny  and  oppression,  were  severely  condemned 
and  threatened  with  appropriate  punishment  because  they 
contravened  the  righteous  will  of  God,  and,  in  wronging 
any  class  of  His  people,  wronged  Him.  (See  especially, 
Amos.)  Even  the  international  relations  of  Israel  were 
brought  under  the  survey  of  this  divine  will.  There, 
too,  His  people  displayed  their  reverence  or  irreverence 
for  Jehovah,  their  gratitude  or  ingratitude,  and  there 
they  proved  whether  they  believed  in  the  perfectness  of 
His  wisdom,  the  supremacy  of  His  power,  the  stedfast- 
ness  of  His  grace.  Hence  we  find  in  the  Psalms,  those 
reflections  in  pious  experience  of  the  prophetic  revela- 
tions of  God,  that  the  sense  of  sin  is  awakened,  not  by 
the  failure  to  reach  an  ideal,  but  by  the  consciousness 
of  having  broken  the  will  of  Jehovah  (Pss.  xxxii.,  li., 
etc.).  The  feeling  of  shame  and  humiHation  was  found 
in  this,  that  sin  was  a  blow  aimed  at  a  Person.  The  will 
of  One  had  been  defied  whose  will  was  the  purest  posses- 
sion and  the  grandest  security  of  Israel. 

3.  Legalism. — After  the  return  from  the  Exile  a  new 
era  set  in  for  this  religion.  What  we  know  as  Judaism 
arose,  with  its  prevaihngly  legaHstic  view  of  the  relations 
of  God  and  His  people.  A  vast  system  of  laws  was 
gradually  drawn  up,  under  the  impression  that  the 
supreme  conception  of  God  is  that  of  a  lawgiver  and  the 

ideal  religion  a  code  of  enactments  prescribing  rules  of 
—  119  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

conduct  for  each  moment  and  relationship  of  a  man's 
Hfe.  The  result  was  not  only  a  hard  externalism  in 
religious  practice,  but  a  shallow  sense  of  sin.  Only 
deeper  souls  saw  that  primarily  God's  law  has  to  do  with 
the  heart,  and  that  His  will  sheds  a  light  upon  the  inner 
depths  of  motive  where  the  mere  legalist  never  walks, 
or  walks  only  blindfolded  with  fumbling  hands  and 
blundering  feet,  feeling  his  way  in  vain. 

IV.  The  Teaching  of  Jesus 

1.  The  Need  of  a  Higher  Standard. — It  needed  that 
a  new  light  should  shine  on  the  personal  relations  of 
man  with  God,  at  higher  levels  than  ever  ancient  prophet 
had  seen,  except  in  partial,  fleeting  ghmpses.  Even 
as  it  was  we  must  remember  that  no  ancient  people 
had  ever  attained  a  morality  so  exalted  as  that  of  the 
Jews.  For  in  the  Greek-Roman  world  of  the  first 
century  all  serious  minds  complained  that  no  fixed 
standard  of  goodness  stood  before  the  minds  of  men. 
Rare  souls  might  work  out  lofty  codes  of  ethics  for 
themselves,  but  they  carried  no  authority  over  the 
general  mass  of  surging  minds.  What  was  needed  was 
a  standard  of  righteousness  as  steady  and  more  truly 
spiritual  than  the  legaHsm  of  the  Jews,  as  truly  ethical 
and  more  complete,  penetrating,  and  authoritative  than 
any  system  of  Platonic  or  Stoic  philosophy.  All  these 
demands  were  met,  and  surpassed,  in  the  Person  and 
work  of  Jesus  Christ.     We  must  therefore  consider  the 

—    I20  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  SIN  AND  EVIL 

fact  of  sin  as  it  is  presented  to  us  in  the  Gospels  and 
Epistles  of  the  New  Testament. 

It  is  sometimes  suggested  that  there  is  not  much 
said  about  sin  in  the  Gospels.  There  is  no  "  over- 
emphasis "  of  this  disagreeable  topic  in  those  bright 
and  genial  pages,  "  ces  charmants  entretiens  sur  le  bord 
du  lac  Genezareth,"  as  Renan  has  it.  This  way  of 
putting  the  matter  has  just  so  much  to  be  said  for  it, 
that  Jesus  on  this  subject  pursues  His  usual  method. 
He  gives  no  systematic  exposition  or  argument  about 
the  origin  or  nature  of  sin.  Nor  does  He  persistently 
dwell,  with  hard  reiterated  strokes,  upon  certain  Umited 
aspects  of  moral  evil.  Nevertheless  one  can  easily 
gather  from  a  survey  of  His  ministry,  if  not  an  organised 
doctrine  of  sin,  at  any  rate  a  definite  conception  of  it, 
which  is  not  less  terrible  or  harrowing  than  any  which 
Christian  theologians  have  wrought  out.  To  some 
minds  it  will  appear  all  the  more  impressive  and  alarm- 
ing, just  because  it  is  found  to  have  so  deeply  moulded 
His  whole  ministry  and  even  directed  His  feet  towards 
the  Cross. 

2.  The  Depth  of  Righteousness  and  of  Sin. — To  begin 
with,  we  must  note  that  Jesus  accepts  the  main  prin- 
ciples of  the  Old  Testament  teaching,  and  some  He 
carries  further  than  they  had  been  carried  before.  For 
example.  He  assumed  that  man  is  responsible  to  God, 
that  the  men  He  addressed  knew  or  ought  to  have 
known  what  the  righteous  will  of  God  is.  More  expHcitly 
than  any  preceding  teacher  He  pictures  over  and  over 

—   121    — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

again  the  fact  that  each  man  must  be  judged  by  God 
with  a  strictness  worthy  ahke  of  a  holy  God  and  a 
rational  agent.  Here  individuaHsm  is  clearly  and 
consistently  carried  out.  God  the  Father  does  not  love 
men  merely  in  the  mass,  and  God  the  Judge  will  likewise 
confront  each  child  of  the  race  individually  with  his 
moral  task  and  the  quality  of  its  fulfilment.  It  is  a 
fact  seldom  remarked  but  most  significant,  that  while 
Jesus  speaks  of  God  so  much  as  Father,  when  He  deals 
with  the  responsibility  of  men  for  their  conduct,  He 
speaks  of  them  almost  always  as  servants  and  subjects 
of  a  Lord  who  owns  and  rules  and  judges  them  (see  the 
Parables  of  Judgment).  It  is  not  surprising,  then,  to 
find  that,  far  from  despising  law,  with  its  penalties  and 
rewards,  Jesus  upholds  and  even  carries  it  further  than 
had  been  done  before.  When  He  deals  with  this 
matter  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  He  distinctly  affirms 
the  permanent  authority  and  excellence  of  the  "  com- 
mandments," and  lays  it  down  that  the  righteousness 
of  His  disciples  must  exceed  that  of  the  scribes  and 
Pharisees  (Matt.  v.  20).  It  is  not  going  deep  enough 
to  say  merely  that  He  means  in  that  saying  to  demand 
sincerity  instead  of  hypocrisy,  or  depth  instead  of  super- 
ficiality. These  must  be  implied,  but  only  because 
He  shows  how  much  deeper  the  law  of  God  penetrates 
than  the  scribes  and  Pharisees  had  been  able  to  see. 
The  law  of  God  is  not  a  mere  matter  of  external  conduct, 
of  changes  which  a  man's  will  works  among  objects 

outside    himself    hke    the    men    on    a    chessboard.     It 
—   122  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  SIN  AND  EVIL 

applies  primarily  to  the  inner  spirit,  "  the  heart  "  of 

the  man.     A  good  chess  player  may  be  an  indifferent 

lover  and  a  poor  citizen,  but  the  man  who  belongs  to 

the  kingdom  of  heaven  must  belong  to  it  and  to  the 

entire  range  of  its  principles  and  laws,  inwardly,  in  the 

quaUty  of    his    inmost  thought,  in   the  direction  and 

objects  of  his  desire  and  will.     It  is  not  mere  murder, 

it  is  that  hatred  from  which  the  fatal  deed  leaps  forth  ; 

it  is  not  the  lawless  act,  but  the  faithless,  self-indulgent 

desire  ;    it  is  not  the  mere  words  of  the  oath,  but  the 

lying  habit  of  life  to  which  the  use  of  the  oath,  as  a  social 

device,  bears  witness,  which  constitute  the  real  seat  of  sin. 

The  commands,  not  to  resist  evil  and  to  love  enemies, 

which  Jesus   and  so   many  of  His   missionaries  have 

obeyed   literally,    lead   up    to   the   subhme   utterance, 

"  Ye  therefore  shall  be  perfect,  as  your  heavenly  Father 

is  perfect  "  (Matt.  v.  21-48).     These  and  other  words 

of  Jesus  abundantly  show  that  in  His  view  the  sphere 

of  moral  judgment  must  be  found  not  in  overt  acts  so 

much  as  in  that  inmost  will,  that  habitude  of  feeling, 

that  secret  home  of  motive  and  impulse  where  alone 

the  active,  conscious  self  is  to  be  really  found.     There 

a  man  must  be  and  feel  and  think  what  is  worthy  of 

God,  if  his  deeds  are  to  shine  with  a  divine  quality. 

3.  Man  as  Lost. — Some  people  seem  to  write  as  if 

this  deeper  view  of  righteousness,  which  Jesus  gives, 

yields  a  more  genial  and  hopeful  standard  for  mankind. 

But  that  was  not  the  way  in  which  the  Lord  looked 

upon  the   matter.     He  treated  all  men  as   estranged 
—  123  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

from  God,  as  morally  outwith  His  fellowship.  All  men 
need  to  have  the  Father  revealed  to  them  by  the  Son ; 
and  that  need  is  not  an  accident  of  history,  it  is  created 
by  the  moral  quality  of  that  inner  self  which  all  men 
possess.  He  found  no  exception,  none  who  did  not 
need  to  be  saved  as  from  a  desperate  situation.  When 
He  says  that  He  had  come  to  save  the  "  lost,"  He  meant 
all  men,  alike  those  who  clothed  themselves  in  a  decep- 
tive garb  of  technical  righteousness,  and  those  whose 
passionate  manner  of  life  compelled  them  to  acknow- 
ledge without  cavil  or  assuagement  that  they  were 
indeed  sinners  before  God.  When  He  speaks  of  the 
"  lost,"  Jesus  introduces  a  new  element  into  that 
dread  conception.  He  describes  them  as  "  lost  "  from 
God's  point  of  view.  It  is  He,  the  owner  and  Lord,  the 
Shepherd  and  Father  of  all  souls,  who  is  represented 
by  the  shepherd  and  the  woman  and  the  forsaken 
father  in  the  parables  of  Luke  xv.  If  the  lost  are  to 
be  found — here  is  the  thrilling  revelation — it  must  be 
God,  who  has  lost  them,  who  shall  also  seek  and  find 
and  save  them  all.  His  grace  must  seek  them  out.  His 
pardon  must  blot  out  the  unholy  past,  His  power  must 
change  their  hearts.  There  is  then  in  the  eyes  of  Jesus 
a  universal  condition  of  man  in  which  he  is  estranged 
from  God,  and  from  this  condition  he  can  be  saved 
not  on  his  own  merits  nor  by  his  own  powers,  but  wholly 
and  solely  by  the  mercy  of  God.  True,  he  must  repent 
and  believe,  but  that  double  movement  of  the  spirit  of 

man  constitutes  in  the  field  of  will  a  change  which  has 

—  124  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  SIN  AND  EVIL 

been  wrought  upon  his  very  self.  A  man  must  become 
as  a  Httle  child  (Matt,  xviii.  2),  he  must  pass  through 
a  transformation  as  drastic  and  complete  as  would  be 
a  new  birth  (John  iii.  3). 

4.  The  Need  of  Salvation. — To  understand  what  sin 
meant  to  Jesus  Christ,  we  must  look  not  merely  to  His 
words,  but  to  His  life,  to  the  work  which  He  undertook 
to  do  for  men.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  He  claimed 
to  be  a  Saviour,  and  thereby  asserted  that  man's  moral 
condition  requires  for  his  salvation  a  power  from  above, 
a  personal  power  which  has  come  from  God.  Nor  can 
there  be  any  doubt  that  His  task  as  Saviour  led  Him 
through  dark  sorrow  to  the  joy  of  its  accompHshment. 
What  else  imposed  woe  on  the  Saviour  but  the  woe  of 
man's  estrangement  from  God  ?  If  the  power  of  His 
Cross  means  only  that  the  spectacle  of  His  faith  which 
quailed  not  at  utter  darkness,  and  His  love  which  died 
not  when  hfe  itself  was  crucified  by  hate,  draws  the 
world's  responsive  trust  and  grateful  love  to  Him, — 
and  His  death  means  far  more  than  that, — yet  even 
this  much  would  prove  that  sin  is  a  state  of  the  human 
heart  which  only  the  sacrifice  of  the  Son  of  God  had 
strength  to  destroy.  His  Cross  has  always  been  felt  by 
those  who  believe  in  Him  to  be  a  revelation  not  merely 
of  the  love  of  God  in  its  purity  and  splendour  (for  all 
love  is  enthroned  only  by  sacrifice),  but  of  the  bitter 
shame  of  sin.  If  then  the  Cross  was  in  Christ's  mind 
His  means  of  saving  the  lost,  its  revelation  to  our  con- 
science of  the  quaUty  of  sin  is  as  truly  and  far  more 
—  125  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

fully   His   actual   teaching   than   the   Sermon   on   the 
Mount  or  the  rebuke  of  the  hypocrites. 


V.  The  Apostolic  Teaching 

The  Apostles  of  Christ  inherited  the  Jewish  con- 
ception of  sin.  They  believed  that  Jehovah,  the  only 
living  and  true  God,  had  given  the  knowledge  of  His 
will  to  the  children  of  Israel,  and  sin  consisted  in  active 
and  deliberate  disobedience  of  that  will.  While  they 
were  taught  to  speak  with  contempt  of  sinners  of  the 
Gentiles,  and  considered  them  as  beyond  the  reach  of 
that  loving-kindness  which  God  had  bestowed  upon  His 
elect  nation,  they  were,  on  the  other  hand,  aware  that 
even  among  the  Jews  the  problem  of  personal  salvation 
had  not  been  solved.  They  had  been  waiting  for  the 
hour  of  redemption,  and  now  that  it  had  come  upon 
them  they  found  themselves  in  a  strangely  surprising 
world.  This  comes  out  in  characteristic  ways  even  in 
their  teaching  about  sin. 

1.  The  Doctrine  of  John. — Thus  in  the  writings  of 
John  sin  appears  as  that  which  received  the  utter  con- 
demnation of  God.  It  is  a  form  of  will  which  is  directly 
hostile  to  His  holy  will,  and  the  awakened  conscience 
feels  the  poignancy  of  this  situation.  That  awakening 
is  due  to  the  advent  of  the  Son  of  God  in  human  flesh 
(John  i.  5,  10,  14).  Henceforth  we  know  that  sin  in  us 
is  a  darkness  which  is  the  very  opposite  of  that  light 

which  is  God  (1  John  i.  5).     It  is  also  lovelessness,  and 

—  126  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  SIN  AND  EVIL 

may  manifest  itself  as  hatred  towards  those  who  deserve 
only  our  love  (1  John  ii.  10,  11,  iii.  13-18)  ;  indeed,  the 
primary  sign  and  proof  that  a  man  has  passed  out  of 
death  into  Ufe  is  the  rise  of  a  new  kind  of  love  in  his 
heart,  which  is  the  gift  of  God's  Spirit.  It  is  also  law- 
lessness (1  John  iii.  4),  for  law  is  the  expression  of  the 
will  of  God,  it  reveals  His  commandments  ;  the  man 
who  sins  is  not  born  of  God,  but  shows  by  his  evil  works 
that  he  draws  his  active  life  from  the  devil  (1  John  iii.  8). 
In  such  powerful  language  does  this  apostolic  writer 
seek  to  convey  the  new  sense  of  sin,  in  its  power  and 
its  hateful  nature,  which  the  coming  of  Christ  has 
created.  And  this  is  added  with  reiteration  and  great 
vigour,  that  a  new  and  supreme  commandment,  a  moral 
obligation  which  precedes  all  others,  had  been  given  in 
the  Person  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  first  law  of  human 
nature  now  is  to  believe  on  Him,  and  the  sin  unto  death 
is  the  deliberate  rejection  of  His  claims  (John  iii.  17-21, 
vi.  29,  xvii.  2,  3 ;    1  John  iii.  23). 

2.  The  Doctrine  of  Paul. — It  is  the  Apostle  Paul  who 
has  written  most  fully  and  deHberately  about  this  matter 
of  sin,  but  we  can  only  briefly  describe  this  general  point 
of  view.  Of  course  he  looks  upon  all  mankind  as  under 
sin.  He  cannot  admit  that  the  Jews  escape  condem- 
nation on  the  ground  that  they  were  a  privileged  people, 
because  they  were  confronted  with  the  full  force  and 
exposed  to  the  terrific  condemnation  of  the  divine  law 
given  through  inspired  law-givers  and  prophets  (Rom. 

ii.-iii.  19).     Nor  can  he  admit  that  the  Gentiles  escape 
—  127  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

condemnation  on  the  ground  that  they  had  no  specific 

revelation  of  that  law  of  God,  because  their  own  social 

habits  and  practices  show  that  conscience  gave  them 

light.     Do  their  lives  show  that  they  have  fulfilled  the 

law  "  written  in  their  hearts  "  ?     Except  in  one  passage 

(Rom.  V.  13-21)  he  does  not  refer  to  the  historical  origin 

of  sin,  and  in  that  passage  his  main  interest  is  to  find  an 

illustration  of  the  relation  in  which  Christ  stands  to  the 

new  Humanity  of  which  He  is  the  head.     Through  Adam 

sin  entered  into  the  world,  and  by  his  trespass  the  many 

died.     There  is  much  in  these  statements  with  which 

subsequent  theology  became  deeply  concerned  ;  but  Paul 

does  not  enlarge  on  the  subject,  and  we  had  better  not 

make  him  responsible  for  any  conclusions  we  may  base 

upon  this  passage  regarding  the  fall  of  man  and  original 

sin. 

We  shall  best  understand  what  Paul,  as  a  believer  in 

Christ  and  an  Apostle  of  his  gospel,  taught  about  sin  by 

looking  at  it  in  the  light  of  a  few  of  the  great  words  which 

he  used  so  freely  and    powerfully,  such  as  law,  grace, 

flesh,  spirit,  death,  righteousness,  life,  etc.     These  were 

never  used  by  him  with  the  precision  and  under  the 

limitations  of  technical  terms.     He  was  living  in  a  great 

creative  period,  and  the  new  era  was  taking  its  rise 

largely  through  the  work  of  Christ's  Spirit  upon  his 

conscience  and  mind.     We  find  him,  therefore,  applying 

words  which  were  already  familiar  in  the  religious  life  of 

his  days,  to  the  new  and  mighty  experiences  which  God 

had  wrought  upon  his  own  and  other  souls.     This  he  does 

—  128  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  SIN  AND  EVIL 

with  the  freedom  and  energy  of  a  master  of  thought  and  of 
language,  and  not  with  the  mere  invariabiHty  of  a  pedant 
or  a  scholastic.  For  example,  the  word  "  sin  "  itself  is 
now  described  as  a  quaHty  of  human  action  (Rom.  ii.  12), 
and  anon  as  a  kind  of  spiritual  force  personified,  a 
potentate  (v.  21,  vi.  14),  a  slave  holder  (vi.  6,  20),  an  ahen 
tyrant  using  the  members  of  the  body  as  the  instruments 
of  his  fatal  power,  and  estabUshing  there  a  law  of  its  own 
(vii.  23,  viii.  2).  It  is  at  once  a  state  in  which  all  men  find 
themselves  (iii.  9),  and  an  attribute  of  the  individual  acts 
of  each  man  when  he  transgresses  the  laws  of  righteousness 
(iii.  25,  iv.  7).  So  free  is  the  energy  of  his  style,  the 
insight  of  his  mind. 

(1)  Sin  and  Law. — In  the  eyes  of  the  Apostle  it  is 
manifest  that  sin  is  co-extensive  with  human  Hfe.  It 
was  in  the  world  before  "  the  law,"  the  historic  revelation 
of  the  will  of  God  in  the  Old  Testament  history,  was  given, 
even  from  Adam  to  Moses.  This  is  proved  by  two  facts, 
the  presence  of  death,  which  is  the  fruit  of  sin,  and  the 
working  of  conscience  among  those  who  have  not  the  law. 
There  is  therefore  in  Paul's  view  a  law  before  the  Mosaic 
law  (Rom.  ii.  12-16)  which  carries  with  it  the  authority  of 
the  will  of  God.  But  "  the  law,"  the  express  revelation 
of  His  will,  was  given  to  the  Jews  from  the  faithfulness 
of  God,  and  this  was  a  supreme  privilege  and  oppor- 
tunity for  that  race  (Rom.  iii.  1-3).  The  giving  of  a  law 
ought  to  be  like  the  giving  of  life  (vii.  10),  since  it  not 
only  reveals  that  will  which  ought  to  be  obeyed,  but  also 

announces  the  rewards  of  obedience  and  the  penalties  of 

9  —  129  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

disobedience.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  law  encoun- 
tered an  enemy  mightier  than  itself  already  seated  on  the 
throne  of  man's  heart.  "  The  law  was  weak  through  the 
flesh  "  (viii.  3).  Nay  more,  as  the  law  continued  to  be 
pressed  upon  man's  attention  it  seemed  to  aggravate  the 
sinful  conditions  (v.  20,  vii.  13  ;  Gal.  iii.  19).  The  light, 
as  it  fell  in  upon  one  chamber  after  another,  displayed 
failure  and  transgression  and  shame  in  them  all.  It 
seemed  like  a  curse  this  disturber  of  man's  immoral 
peace,  like  a  betrayer  of  innocence  this  voice  which 
brought  aU  men  under  guilt.  "  By  the  law  is  the  know- 
ledge of  sin  "  (Rom.  iii.  20).  But  this  terrible  function 
of  the  law,  when  announced  as  the  inexorable  will  of  God, 
was  the  best  preparation  for  Christ  (Gal.  iii.  19-25).  By 
introducing  into  the  world  a  higher  view  of  God's  demands 
upon  man  and  a  deeper  sense  of  man's  native  inability 
to  meet  those  demands,  the  need  of  a  Saviour  was  made 
clear.  No  man  who  has  felt  the  sting  of  sin  can  do  aught 
but  welcome  the  sound  of  a  Redeemer's  voice. 

(2)  Sin  and  Flesh. — Another  aspect  of  sin  is  brought 
out  by  Paul's  use  of  the  antithetic  terms  "  flesh  "  and 
"  Spirit,"  especially  in  such  passages  as  Romans  vi.-viii. 
and  Galatians  vi.  13-24.  There  we  find  those  two  words 
used  to  describe  the  double  nature  of  man.  In  the  lower, 
"  the  flesh,"  sin  has  its  seat  of  power  and  is  able  to  repress 
all  attempts  of  the  higher  principle  to  obtain  full  control 
of  life.  Of  course  the  word  "  flesh  "  must  not  be  re- 
stricted merely  to  the  physical  frame  and  its  appetites, 

for  the  works  of  the  flesh  include  forms  of  sin,  such  as 

—  130  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  SIN  AND  EVIL 

covetousness  (Rom.  vii.  7),  sorcery,  jealousy,  and  others 
(Gal.  V.  20)  which  do  not  properly  have  their  seat  in 
animal  passion,  but  in  those  desires  which  are  stirred  by 
the  powers  of  the  mind.  And  yet  the  word  flesh  is  con- 
veniently used  as  describing  at  once  that  main  centre, 
or  the  lower  part  of  us,  around  which  the  evil  will  tends 
to  gather  its  interests,  and  that  terrible  revenge  of  a 
wronged  nature  by  which  that  lower  part  becomes  the 
dominating  force  in  a  human  character,  instead  of  the 
obedient  and  pliant  instrument  of  "  the  spirit,"  the  nobler 
intellectual  and  moral  seK.  Sin  is  therefore  the  whole 
state  of  disorder  into  which  the  dominion  of  the  flesh 
throws  the  natural  relations  of  our  complex  being. 

(3)  Sin  and  Grace. — Another  aspect  is  brought  out 
by  the  Apostle's  contrast  of  man's  sin  with  the  grace 
of  God.  The  breaking  of  the  law  of  righteousness  has 
thrown  man  into  a  condition  both  of  guilt  and  helpless- 
ness. That  he  is  guilty  means  that  he  has  done  what 
is  wrong,  and  that  he  must  encounter  the  appropriate 
consequences.  That  he  is  helpless  means  that  no 
conceivable  efforts  of  his  own  can  ever  lift  him  out 
of  this  condition.  Man  cannot  put  himself  right  with 
God,  because,  if  he  attempts  it  by  fulfilment  of  the  law, 
he  finds  himself  involved  in  a  deeper  sense  of  guilt  the 
further  that  law  penetrates  with  its  holy  fight  into  his 
heart.  And  his  fellow-men  help  his  defeat,  for  self- 
redemption  can  be  no  mere  individual  matter  achieved 
in  isolation.  A  man  depends  on  his  social  inheritance, 
and  no  man  has  yet  found  a  mode  of  life  among  his 
—  131  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

fellows  in  which  he  can  clear  himself  of  sin.  He  con- 
tinues to  share  the  imperfect  ideals  and  the  unhallowed 
impulses  of  his  "  set,"  his  race,  and  his  generation. 
Paul  seems  to  have  felt  this  even  when  his  "  set  "  pro- 
nounced him  blameless  (Phil.  iii.  3-6,  cf.  Rom.  vii. 
7—10).  But  Paul  understood  the  situation  only 
when  "  a  righteousness "  (Rom.  iii.  21),  a  way  of 
getting  right  with  God,  had  appeared  to  him  as  the 
act  and  gift  of  God  Himself.  The  grace  of  God  had 
suddenly  lifted  him  into  new  relations  with  the  moral 
universe.  That  grace  was  simply  the  holy  will  of  God 
showing  itseK  as  an  immeasurable  love.  This  was 
done  for  Paul  and  for  all  men  in  the  Person 
and  Work  of  Christ,  and  in  the  universal  offer  of  the 
mercy  of  God,  the  forgiving  and  dehvering  power  of 
God.  Henceforth  this  offer  of  the  mercy,  the  personal 
love  of  God,  becomes  the  fundamental  law  of  the  Hfe 
of  man.  It  reveals  the  hideous  nature  of  sin  as  even 
the  law  could  not  do.  None  know  sin  as  do  those  who 
have  looked  into  the  heart  of  mercy.  From  that  centre 
there  streams  such  purity,  such  love,  that  the  conscience 
is  at  once  appalled  and  encouraged.  Sin  stands  revealed 
as  a  quahty  of  the  human  will  which  can  never  be 
cleansed  except  by  an  act  of  sheer  forgiveness,  and 
only  the  will  of  God  can  do  that.  The  Cross  alone  proves 
what  that  mode,  the  only  conceivable  mode,  of  destroy- 
ing the  sin  of  man  without  destroying  man  has  cost 
Him  from  whose  love  beyond  all  our  dreams  of  love 

His  Son  came  forth  to  heal  and  hallow  our  great  woe. 
—  132  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  SIN  AND  EVIL 

And  in  that  case  a  new  form  of  sin  has  been  made 
possible  whenever  this  grace  of  God  is  itself  directly, 
deUberately,  and  permanently  rejected.  This  must  be 
the  nature  of  the  deepest,  the  last,  the  eternal  sin. 


VI.  The  Modern  Situation. 

These,  then,  are  the  elements  of  the  Christian  view  of 
that  moral  evil  which,  as  we  saw,  is  present  everywhere 
in  the  experience  of  man.  We  cannot  here  enter  upon 
the  great  discussions  of  the  nature  of  sin  which  have 
arisen  in  the  course  of  Christian  theology.  But  a  few 
words  must  be  said  about  the  present  situation  of  this 
doctrine. 

1.  Sources  of  Attach  on  the  Bible  Doctrine. — There 
are  three  sources  from  which  attack  is  made  upon  it  : 
(1)  First,  the  doctrine  of  evolution  has  been  used  by 
some  to  prove  that  sin  is  a  natural  stage  in  the  progress 
of  man  from  the  immoral  to  the  spiritual  realms  of  Hfe. 
It  is  the  dominance  of  the  lower  and  selfish  appetites 
over  the  higher  power  of  forming  social  and  unselfish 
ideals.  (2)  Second,  the  conception  of  the  beneficence 
of  God,  whether  called  His  Fatherhood  or  not,  has 
been  used  to  still  the  fear  of  penalty  and  assuage 
the  pangs  of  repentance.  If  God  chooses,  it  is  urged. 
He  can  pardon  sin  on  any  conditions  which  He  may 
ordain.  An  atonement  is  an  impossible  device,  and  its 
invention  by  the  perverse  ingenuity  of  the  Apostles 
was  an  unnecessary  and  burdensome  addition  to  the 
—  133  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

sweet  and  persuasive  and  comfortable  message  of  Jesus. 
(3)  Third,  we  have  the  subtle  opiate  of  pantheism, 
working  in  various  forms.  It  appears  in  some  sects 
of  theology,  in  much  of  what  is  called  New  Thought, 
and  even  underHes  Christian  Science.  Whenever  it  is 
said  "  Grod  is  all,  and  all  is  good " ;  whenever  we  are 
bidden  to  crush  sin  by  ceasing  to  fear  it,  by  merely 
forming  habits  of  thought  which  deny  it  or  ignore  it ; 
whenever  we  are  urged  not  to  deal  with  it  as  a  matter 
between  us  and  the  holy  will  of  a  personal  God,  but 
to  cultivate  "  healthy-minded  "  freedom  from  dread  or 
sorrow  or  penitence  of  soul,  we  are  in  the  presence  of  a 
pantheistic  view  of  the  universe.  That  way  disaster 
lies,  the  lowering  of  personality  in  us  by  denying  it  in 
God,  the  impoverishing  of  morality  by  the  removal  of 
a  judgment  throne,  the  withering  of  love  by  the  removal 
of  the  atoning  cross  from  the  centre  of  history  and 
from  the  heart  of  God. 

2.  So-called  Evolutionary  Explanation  of  Sin. — 
Much  is  being  written  at  present  regarding  the  origin 
of  sin  with  a  view  to  a  clearer  understanding  of  its 
nature.  Especially  are  ejfforts  being  made  to  explain 
it,  as  we  have  said  above,  in  the  light  of  evolution.  Sin 
marks  that  stage,  we  are  told,  in  the  development  of 
our  world  at  which  reason  and  the  power  of  living  by 
ideals  appeared  in  human  nature.  Then  the  appetites 
which  belong  to  the  animal  part  of  man  became  the 
means  of  sin.  In  themselves  they  are  not  sinful,  but 
pure  and  beneficent,  and  indeed  necessary  to  the  very 

—  134  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  SIN  AND  EVIL 

existence  and  development  of  the  animal  world.  Even 
in  man  they  only  become  sinful,  because  man  ceases 
to  use  them  for  their  true  and  restricted  ends.  He 
turns  them  from  social  and  racial  purposes  to  private 
pleasures.  Hunger,  which  is  pure,  becomes  greed, 
which  is  sinful.  Sleep  becomes  sloth.  The  sense  of 
power  becomes  tyranny.  SeK-love  becomes  selfishness, 
and  self-respect  pride.  It  is  from  this  point  of  view  that 
the  absurd,  smart  saying  arose  that  sin  is  the  mark  of 
"  the  Fall  upwards,"  an  incident  in  the  ascent  of  man. 

There  is  a  certain  amount  of  valuable  truth  in  all 
this,  and  henceforth  theology  must  take  account  of  it. 
But  as  a  real  explanation  of  the  nature  of  sin  it  is  quite 
futile.  It  helps  us  to  understand  vice  and  crime,  or 
social  disorder.  It  is  of  some  value  in  the  psychology 
of  sinful  habit  and  conduct.  But  its  failure  to  explain 
sin  arises  from  the  fact  that  the  term  "  sin  "  has  no 
meaning  outside  of  the  religious  consciousness.  It  is 
amazing  to  read  discussions  of  the  matter  which  com- 
pletely ignore  the  modern  history  and  philosophy  of 
religion,  which  only  touch  the  religious  view  of  sin  after 
all  these  evolutionary  commonplaces  have  been  set 
down,  when  the  attempt  is  being  made  to  relate  them 
with  Christianity. 

The  fact  is,  that  the  sense  of  sin  begins,  like  all  ele- 
ments of  human  consciousness,  in  dim,  confused,  and 
vague  forms,  but  always  in  the  religious  atmosphere. 
Sin,  as  a  scientifically  used  term,  cannot  be  applied 
except  to  the  sense  of  broken  relations,  of  "  something 
—  135  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

wrong,"  between  a  man  (or  a  tribe),  and  the  invisible 
power  (or  powers)  whom  he  (or  the  tribe)  worships. 
Even  conscience,  or  the  moral  consciousness,  when 
taken  merely  in  its  social  aspect,  does  not  give  us  the 
clue  to  sin,  unless  that  consciousness  is  viewed,  as  Kant 
viewed  it,  as  a  function  of  the  religious  nature  of  man. 
It  is  only  when  man  is  aware,  however  dully,  of  his 
relation  to  a  power,  a  judge,  an  owner,  a  master,  however 
poorly  conceived,  to  whom  he  is  responsible  and  on 
whose  will  his  happiness  depends,  that  the  fact  called 
sin  takes  its  place  in  history.  That  consciousness  can 
now  be  traced  along  the  trunk  hne  of  rehgious  develop- 
ment from  its  crude  origins  in  Chaldea  and  Arabia  to 
its  full  understanding  in  the  souls  of  Christian  Apostles 
and  the  saints  whom  their  message  has  created. 

3.  Sin  and  Man^s  Place  in  Nature. — It  remains  to 
say  a  few  words  on  that  with  which  we  set  out,  namely, 
the  fact  and  problem  of  evil.  (1)  First,  we  may  repeat 
in  a  word  that  modern  science  forbids  us  to  attribute  to 
the  natural  world  the  amount  of  evil,  in  the  form  of 
suffering,  which  it  has  been  the  custom  of  many  to  see 
there.  And  further,  science  teaches  us  to  regard  physical 
pain  as  an  instrument  which  a  wise  Providence  may 
use  for  worthy  ends.  (2)  Secondly,  the  vast  sorrow  and 
hideous  sufferings  of  humanity  must  be  looked  at  in 
the  Hght  of  that  rational  freedom  which  is  the  divinely 
ordained  basis  of  his  nature,  and  of  that  sin  which  he 
has  made  the  abnormal  basis  of  his  Ufe. 

(1)  The  Invasion  of  Nature. — We  must  remember 
-  136- 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  SIN  AND  EVIL 

that  it  is  because  man  has  freedom  and  reason  that  he 
is  able  to  put  himself  in  a  deeper  relation  than  that  of 
mere  animals,  with  the  infinite  intricacies  and  forces  of 
nature.  He  invades  the  ordered  events  of  the  world, 
he  seeks  to  rearrange  its  facts  elaborately  for  his  own 
ends.  He  builds  his  cities  on  swamps,  and  pestilence 
ensues.  He  builds  them  again  and  again  where  earth- 
quakes have  occurred  and  will  occur,  and  encounters 
the  repeated  desolations  of  Messina  and  San  Francisco. 
He  penetrates  the  quiet  fields  with  his  mines,  half 
knowing  and  half  careless  of  the  facts,  and  ruinous 
explosions  sometimes  reward  his  daring.  He  sows  his 
seed  generation  after  generation,  cuts  down  the  forests, 
and  then  sees  rainless  skies  above  his  head,  an  exhausted 
soil  under  his  feet,  and  famine  at  his  door.  What  does 
it  all  mean  ?  Not  that  God  has  put  man  into  a  hostile 
world  to  torture  him,  nor  that  God  has  no  control  for 
His  own  final  purposes  of  the  order  which  He  has  created. 
But  this,  that  the  history  of  man  even  in  his  relations 
with  nature  is  a  co-partnery  with  God.  God,  for  His 
own  blessed  ends,  has  created  man  with  free  will  and 
reason,  as  his  co-worker.  And  behold  how  vast  are 
the  changes  on  the  surface  of  our  world  which  man  is 
making  !  There  will  soon  be  found  no  spot  on  earth 
which  is  not  more  or  less  humanised,  clothed  with  new 
meaning  and  even  changed  in  its  appearance  for  man's 
ends  and  in  man's  taste.  But  into  this  work  man 
carries  his  whole  moral  nature,  and  the  fortunes  which 
he  encounters  are  the  results  of  his  character  as  well 
—  iZ7  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

as  of  his  reason  striving  to  master  the  powers  of  nature. 
And  the  work  itself  is  reacting  on  his  character  as  well 
as  gradually  unfolding  the  infinite  resources  of  his 
reason.  Is  not  this  the  end  which  God  had  in  view 
when  the  foundations  of  our  world  were  laid  ? 

(2)  The  Cost  of  Freedom. — But  when  God  chose  to 
create  a  free  moral  being  who  should  at  last  attain 
to  full  and  unspeakable  and  eternal  fellowship  with 
Himself,  He  created  a  nature  with  whose  laws  He  must 
Himself  henceforth  reckon.  God  can  no  more  treat 
man  as  a  mere  thing,  and  compel  him  to  be  good  or 
happy,  than  He  can  treat  a  stone  as  an  angel  to  give 
it  wings  of  light  and  songs  of  a  happy  heart.  The 
righteousness,  the  hohness  of  God,  demands  that  He 
shall  treat  a  stone  as  a  stone  and  free  man  as  free  man. 
This  means  that  in  the  working  out  of  human  destiny  by 
man's  uses  of  nature  and  worship  of  God,  the  laws  of 
those  two  sets  of  relations  must  be  fully  and  constantly 
and  at  all  costs  observed.  There  shall  be  joy  and  pain, 
defeat  and  victory,  thrilling  delight  and  black,  dull  woe, 
as  man  in  his  moral  freedom  invades  the  harmonious 
unity  of  nature  for  his  own  ends,  and  as  he  invades  the 
presence  of  God  with  his  prayers  and  tears,  his  rebellion 
or  his  trust.  In  the  exercise  of  his  freedom  man  has 
sinned.  When  and  how  this  situation  arose  does  not 
much  matter.  It  is  here,  a  real  and  most  desolate 
fact.  The  mystery  of  it  lies  in  the  free  will  of  man, 
and  the  mystery  of  that  in  the  supreme  will  and  final 
purpose  of  God.     It  is  the  factor  of  sin  in  human  con- 

- 138- 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  SIN  AND  EVIL 

sciousness  which  casts  its  shadow  on  death,  which 
makes  suffering  hideous,  which  therefore  renders  the 
death  and  suffering  of  all  sentient  creatures  darker  in 
man's  view  than  they  really  are  for  them.  It  is  this 
defect  in  his  moral  nature  which  hinders,  diverts,  and 
misuses  his  rational  power  over  nature.  A  purer  race  will 
aboHsh  pestilence,  reduce  accident  to  a  minimum,  and 
learn  to  see  inevitable  pain  and  even  death  steadily  in 
the  light  of  the  indisputable  love  and  mighty  wisdom 
of  God. 

(3)  Sin  and  the  Gospel. — That  purer  race  is  being 
produced  by  the  gospel  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  The 
gospel  reveals  God  in  a  personal  relation  with  the  evil 
of  history  of  which  no  religion  has  ever  had  any  con- 
ception. He  is  not  a  blind  energy  submerged  in  the 
mass  which  it  propels  on  a  dark  course  toward  an  un- 
known end,  any  more  than  He  is  a  cold  and  transcendent 
Deity  living  in  remote  blessedness  beyond  the  waves 
and  tumults  of  pain  and  sin.  He  has  entered  into 
human  life,  has  made  its  experience  His  own,  has  been 
"  made  perfect  through  suffering,"  has  "  tasted  death 
for  every  man."  This  is  the  sublime  message,  this  the 
miracle  above  all  miracles,  which  the  final  religion  is 
carrying  to  our  hearts.  The  pantheist  of  the  Orient 
will  be  roused  from  his  despair  by  the  fresh  hope  which 
this  fact  gives  to  every  individual  and  the  glory  it  sheds 
on  the  lowliest  of  the  sons  of  men.  The  Mohammedan 
will  be  subdued  to  a  new  sweetness  of  faith,  a  new 
purity  in  his  hope,  by  this  conquering  word  of  grace, 
—  139  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

mightier  than  the  sword  of  Islam.  Evil  is  transmuted 
for  the  man  of  faith,  as  by  a  divine  alchemy,  from  a 
leaden  doom  to  a  golden  weapon  of  blessing.  And 
this  is  done  because  the  root  of  evil  in  man's  heart, 
sin,  has  been  condemned  on  the  Cross  and  is  being 
swept  out  of  individual  conscience  swiftly,  out  of  social 
life  gradually,  by  the  indwelling  Spirit  of  the  holy  and 
wise  and  mighty  God  of  Love  and  Life. 


140  — 


CHAPTER   VI. 

THE  CHRISTIAN  MESSAGE  OF  SALVATION. 

TTTE  have  seen  that  the  Christian  religion  frankly  and 

^  ^      earnestly  looks  on  the  condition  of  human  nature 

as  one  of  sin.     It  is  not  blind  to  the  fact  of  suffering,  nor 

deaf  to  the  woeful  cries  of  bereavement  and  defeat. 

But  it  does  deal  more  firmly  and  directly  than  any 

previous  religion  with  that  element  which  underlies  all 

our  experience    and    which    it     denominates    without 

paUiation  or  subterfuge  as  sin.     The  state  of  sin  is, 

as  we  have  seen,  one  in  which  the  soul  is  consciously 

separated  from  God.     This  separation  is  of  course  not 

physical    nor    even    metaphysical.     For    God    is    and 

must  be  the  support  of  our  bodily  and  our  mental 

organism  and  life  from  the  first  moment  to  the  last ; 

we  all  "  five  and  move  and  have  our  being  in  Him." 

It  is  a  moral  separation,  a  breach  in  the  mutual  fellowship 

of  the  Creator  of  all  with  His  rational  and  responsible 

creatures,    of  Father  and  children.     That   this   moral 

rupture  can  continue  indefinitely  without  reacting  on 

the  physical  and  intellectual  life  of  man  is  inconceivable. 

The  nature  of  man  is  a  unity,  and  a  disaster  so  central 

as  this  must  wreak  its  doom  on  the  whole  round  of  his 
^  141  -^ 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

being,  and  become  manifest  in  every  aspect  of  his 
active  and  conscious  life. 

We  have  seen,  further,  that  sin  is  reaHsed  in  definite 
sins.  We  call  it  a  state  because  it  is  in  all  men  at  first 
a  form  of  the  moral  consciousness,  an  inner  relation 
of  the  conscious  self  to  God ;  but  it  could  not  be  a  real 
state  unless  it  were  expressed  and  defined  in  action. 
Indeed,  it  is  usually  in  and  through  the  sinful  colour 
of  his  positive  deeds  that  a  man  discovers  himself  to  be 
in  a  state  of  sin.  And  finally,  this  whole  set  of  conditions, 
amid  which  an  Apostle  must  write,  "  there  is  none 
righteous,  no  not  one,"  involves  the  dread  facts  of  penalty 
and  doom.  The  being  that  is  made  capable  of  living 
in  harmony  and  union  with  God,  in  a  universe  which 
is  by  its  very  nature  built  to  bless  and  sustain  that 
harmony,  must  find  that  the  order  of  things  is  against 
him  when  he  transgresses  the  conditions  of  that  relation- 
ship. Hence  at  every  point  sin  receives  its  inevitable 
fruitage  of  pain  and  at  last  of  death. 

This  being  the  situation  to  which  the  universal  con- 
sciousness bears  witness  with  essential  unanimity,  though 
in  varying  phrase  and  temper,  we  must  see  how  the 
religion  which  professes  to  be  absolute  and  final,  and 
therefore  of  universal  power  and  authority,  proposes  to 
deal  with  it. 

I.  The  Substance  of  Salvation. 

We  shall  first  consider  the  nature  of  that  deliverance 

which  Christianity  offers  to  a  sinful  and  a  sorrowful  race. 

—  142  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MESSAGE  OF  SALVATION 

And  it  will  conduce  to  clearness  if  we  begin  by  emphasis- 
ing its  difference  from  certain  other  methods  which  have 
been  proposed.  (1)  It  is,  of  course,  thoroughly  distinct 
from  the  Buddhist  method,  which  rests  upon  the  idea 
that  the  root  of  that  woe  which  pervades  the  entire 
universe  of  sentient  beings  is  existence  itself  and  the 
will  to  Hve.  Christianity  opposes  to  this  the  directly 
contrary  doctrine.  It  offers  life,  and  Hfe  more  abund- 
antly. It  proposes  to  make  existence  a  very  joy,  to  fill 
the  cup  of  human  nature  with  an  experience  which  is 
all-pure  and  all-blessed  and  everlasting.  (2)  It  also 
departs  from  all  those  methods  which  are  associated 
with  the  mysteries  of  Greece  and  the  so-called  "  oc- 
cultist "  proceedings  of  some  Hindu  sects.  The  mere 
development  of  psychic  powers,  even  if  possible,  has  no 
influence  on  a  man's  relations  with  God,  nor  any  necessary 
influence  for  good  on  his  moral  character.  For  the  very 
essence  of  the  reUgious  problem  of  man,  as  viewed  in 
the  New  Testament,  is  to  be  found  in  the  personal 
relations  of  God  and  man.  The  moral  issue  is  primary 
and  supreme.  (3)  The  gospel  stands  in  stark  contrast 
with  the  message  of  Mohammed  in  this,  that  it  is  a 
message  of  redemption  and  that  it  is  based  upon  a  deed 
of  sacrifice  on  the  cross  in  which  the  eternal  God  Himself 
was  both  the  agent  and  the  subject.  The  might  of 
God  is  engaged  on  behalf  of  man  in  and  through  His 
sympathy,  as  well  as  His  righteousness,  His  mercy  in 
historic  deeds  of  salvation  as  well  as  His  severity  in 
judgment. 

—  143  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

It  will  be  convenient  for  our  present  purpose  to  set 
forth  the  substance  of  the  Christian  salvation  under 
three  heads,  the  first  of  which  will  be  more  fully  treated 
than  the  others. 

1.  Forgiveness  of  Sins. — In  the  first  place,  it  offers 
and  confers  the  forgiveness  of  sins. 

{1)  In  the  Gospels. — The  Gospels  make  it  plain  that 
in  the  ministry  of  Jesus  this  divine  act  occupies  a  most 
prominent  and  challenging  position.  The  Synoptic 
Gospels  describe  with  unanimous  care  the  incident  of 
the  healing  of  the  paralytic  (see  Mark  ii.  3-12),  when 
Jesus  not  only  put  the  forgiveness  of  sins  in  a  place  of 
importance  above  that  of  heahng  a  fell  disease,  but 
claimed  that  this  was  the  very  work  which  He  had 
authority  to  do  upon  the  earth.  Indeed,  when  he  first 
began  His  ministry.  He  took  up  the  message  of  the 
prophet  John  as  his  starting-point,  and  preached  that 
repentance  which  has  no  motive  and  no  issue  unless  it 
be  accompanied  and  blessed  by  pardon  (Mark  i.  4,  14,  15). 
Although  there  is  no  mere  iteration  of  a  formula  in  His 
great  and  creative  ministry,  although  He  deals  broadly 
and  sympathetically,  and  therefore  differently,  with 
the  men  and  women  who  come  into  contact  with  Him, 
yet  He  never  obscures  the  fact  that  their  deepest  relation 
is  with  God,  and  the  deepest  element  in  that  relation 
is  moral.  No  man  can  face  the  Father  through  Jesus 
without  feeling  immediately  that  his  conscience  has 
been  excited  to  intense  activity,  and  that  the  ethical 
issues  are  foremost  as  well  as  supreme.    This  is  the 

—  144  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MESSAGE  OF  SALVATION 

point  at  which,  subjectively,  the  absolute  union  of 
ethics  and  reUgion  is  for  ever  established  by  Christianity. 
It  is  the  point  from  which  ceremonialism  and  an  unholy 
occultism  both  shrink  back  in  hatred  and  scorn  ;  of  this 
the  cases  of  Simon  the  Pharisee  (Luke  vii.  36-50)  and 
Simon  Magus  (Acts  viii.  9-24)  are  good  illustrations.  The 
former  case  was  dealt  with  by  Jesus  in  words  of  tender 
and  immortal  beauty.  He  defended  the  unconventional 
gratitude  of  the  woman,  not  because  she  was  a  sinner 
of  a  certain  type,  but  because  she  was  a  sinner  ;  and 
He  conveyed  to  Simon  the  warning  that  his  first  need 
was  a  forgiveness  which  might  break  open  the  pent-in 
love  of  his  heart,  and  that  he  had  as  great  need  of  for- 
giveness as  she.  Self -righteousness  and  self-abandon- 
ment to  passion  are  both  the  enemies  of  love.  The 
one  starves  it  in  an  iron-bound  cell,  the  other  murders 
it  in  a  garden  of  luxury.  The  only  deliverer  and  restorer 
of  love  is  the  word  of  forgiveness  from  the  heart  of 
God. 

(2)  In  the  Apostolic  Message. — The  story  of  the 
Apostolic  Church  carries  from  city  to  city  the  new  great 
word  "  forgiveness."  It  is  new  not  in  its  syllables  and 
outward  sound,  nor  in  its  mere  lexical  meaning.  But 
it  is  new  as  the  very  heart  of  good  tidings  from  God  to 
man  which  were  made  possible  on  the  Cross  and  wit- 
nessed by  the  Resurrection  of  Jesus.  The  Apostle 
Peter  found  himself  proclaiming  it  under  the  over- 
mastering aiflatus  of  Pentecost ;   and  henceforth  he  and 

the  rest  of  the  brethren  went  out  farther  and  farther 
lo  —  145  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

into  the  world,  announcing  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  and 
that  every  one  who  beheves  on  Him  "  shall  receive 
remission  of  sins."  In  the  writings  of  Paul  and  of  John, 
and  of  course  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  the  fact  is 
the  same.  While  the  first-named  Apostle  is,  hke  his 
Master,  free  from  narrow  bondage  to  words  and  has  varied 
ways  of  approaching  the  soul,  he  is  never  for  a  moment 
untrue  to,  or  neglectful  of,  the  vital  and  central  im- 
portance of  this  experience.  Indeed,  by  a  natural 
reaction  of  thought  he  does  once  speak  as  if  for- 
giveness of  sins  were  a  phrase  which  summed  up 
the  whole  meaning  and  power  of  our  redemption 
(Col.  i.  14.). 

(3)  The  Meaning  of  Forgiveness. — In  the  idea  of 
forgiveness  two  elements  are  present,  one  negative 
and  the  other  positive.  According  to  the  former,  sin 
ceases  to  be  the  determiner  of  relations  between  God 
and  man.  God  as  it  were  wipes  out  the  record  of  wrong 
deeds,  removes  them  from  over  the  man's  head  as  far  as 
east  is  from  the  west.  He  does  not  deal  with  that  man 
now  and  henceforth  as  a  guilty  man.  According  to 
the  latter  element,  God  takes  the  penitent  into  His 
glorious  fellowship.  Henceforth  he  is  to  be  thought 
of  in  our  heart,  and  he  is  to  the  heart  of  God  as  a  son 
at  home,  as  a  lost  treasure  recovered  to  the  joys  and 
uses  of  its  owner.  His  past  is  no  longer  to  intrude  its 
shadow,  a  shadow  which  is  more  soHd  and  high  than 
Alpine  barriers,  between  his  heart  and  God,  between 

his  thought  of  God  and  the  deep  joy  of  that  name.     In 

—  146  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MESSAGE  OF  SALVATION 

the  language  of  Paul,  he  is  now  "  justified  "  or  reckoned 
and  dealt  with  as  righteous,  as  standing  in  right  relations 
with  God  (Rom.  iv. ;  Gal.  iv.). 

(4)  Removal  of  Penalty. — It  is  evident  that  in  this 
great  act   the   first   and  fundamental  penalty  of   sin, 
from  which  all  others  flow  according  to  spiritual  and 
natural    law,    has    been    abolished.     Separation    from 
God,  alike  in  His  will  and  in  man's  will,  is  at  an  end, 
and  a  union  is  established  from  which  henceforth  the 
whole  fife  is  to  take  its  direction  and  meaning,  its  spirit 
and  power.     It  is  true  that  many  of  the  penalties  of 
past  sin   remain,  and   their   bitterness  must   continue 
to  be  experienced.     But  even  that  fact  is  transmuted 
from  a  curse  into  a  blessing.     HumiHty  and  patience 
are  deepened,  faith  is  nourished  by  this  constant  demand 
upon  its  exercise,  peace  is  sought  and  possessed  amid 
the  din  of  the  Holy  War.     And  the  man  of  faith  is 
inspired  to  hold  that  the  mighty  wisdom  and  grace  of 
God  can  gradually  work  out  of  his  own  life,  and  from 
the  lives  of  those  whom  he  has  wronged,  the  last  trace 
of  his  hideous  past.     The  horrid  and  un-Christian  doc- 
trine that  we  must  carry  the  scars  of  our  sins  for  ever 
upon  our  persons  and  in  our  memories,  which  is  some- 
times illustrated  in  the  shallowest  way  by  smatterers 
in  physiology  and  psychology,  is  to  be  rejected  as  an 
insult  to  God  and  as  an  injury  to  many  a  perturbed 
conscience.     The  forgiveness  of  sins  is  a  complete  act 
of  the  love  of  God,  and  its  whole  wondrous,  pure,  and 
blessed  issues  are  to  be  read  only  in  the  deepest  out- 
—  147  ~ 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

cries  of  a  sincere  penitence  and  the  vast  claims  of  a 
measureless  trust. 

2.  Deliverance  from  the  Power  of  Sin. — But  these 
words  are  taking  us  over  into  our  next  topic.  The 
Christian  salvation  implies  deUverance  from  the 
dominion  of  sin  and  evil.  Both  words  must  be  used 
here  for  reasons  contained  in  our  discussion  of  sin  in 
another  chapter.  The  dominion  of  sin  is  much  referred 
to  by  the  Apostle  Paul,  alike  as  a  fact  of  human  experi- 
ence and  as  a  matter  with  which  the  gospel  is  qualified 
to  deal  most  powerfully.  In  his  famous  seventh  chapter 
of  Romans  he  sets  forth  the  inward  and  fruitless  struggle 
by  which  a  man  tries  to  rid  himself  of  sin  when  he  is 
confronted  with  the  whole  claim  and  quahty  of  the 
divine  law.  He  is  not  considering  the  case  of  those 
who  have  formed  to  themselves  ideals  of  manhood  and 
conduct,  no  doubt  often  noble  and  high,  and  have  set 
themselves  to  follow  rules  of  virtue  and  seK-respect. 
Happily,  the  number  of  those  is  not  inconsiderable, 
and  their  attainments  are  among  the  most  moving 
glories  of  the  story  of  man.  He  has  in  view  the  con- 
science which  is  searched  by  the  law  of  God,  the  heart 
which  is  trying  to  match  itself  against  the  claims  of  a 
righteousness  both  living  and  real,  penetrating  and 
relentless.  In  that  presence  every  man  confesses  that 
Paul  wrote  of  every  man  when  he  said,  "  To  will  is 
present  with  me,  but  to  do  that  which  is  good  is  not. 
To  me  who  would  do  good,  evil  is  present."     The  bitter 

cry,  "Who  shall  deliver  me  out  of  the  body  of  this 

—  148  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MESSAGE  OF  SALVATION 

death  ?  "  which  he  uttered,  he  also  answered  for  us 
all.  The  dominion  of  sin  has  been  broken  by  the  coming 
of  Christ.  Through  Him  new  relations  to  God  are 
established  which  include  this,  that  the  Spirit  of  God, 
the  blessed  and  wonderful  indwelling  of  God  Himself, 
enters  into  a  man's  heart.  Henceforth  that  man, 
acting  in  new  relations  with  God  and  the  whole  moral 
universe,  lives  from  new  motives,  for  new  ends.  He 
is  a  renewed  man,  a  regenerate  soul  (John  iii.  3  ;  Eph. 
ii.  5,  iv.  23,  24  ;  2  Cor.  v.  17).  His  habits  of  thought  are 
changed,  for  he  minds  the  things  of  the  Spirit  (Rom. 
viii.  5,  etc.).  His  instinctive  feeUngs  rise  as  out  of  a 
new  well,  and  graces  appear  in  his  tone  and  temper, 
words  and  ways,  which  look  like  fruit  of  a  heavenly 
power  (Gal.  v.  22).  The  Epistles  teem  with  illustrations 
of  this  wonderful  freedom  from  the  thraldom  of  habitual 
sin,  of  moral  blindness,  of  self-seeking  and  self-will  (Rom. 
vi.  12-14). 

3.  The  Immortal  Life. — The  general  idea  of  salvation 
in  the  New  Testament  includes  not  only  the  giving 
of  fellowship  with  God  and  release  from  the  slavery 
of  sin,  but  also  the  possession  of  eternal  life. 

(1)  Eternal  Life. — It  is  true  that  this  phrase  does 
often  refer  to  the  quaUty  of  life  rather  than  its  duration, 
but  the  latter  element  is  never  excluded,  and  indeed 
is  always  implied.  From  no  use  of  it  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment can  the  idea  of  permanence  be  withdrawn  without 
wrecking  its  whole  beauty  and  power.  Nor  can  the 
phrase  be  so  etherealised  as  to  extrude  the  element  of 
—  149  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

personality.  It  is  personal  immortality  with  which 
the  New  Testament  is  concerned.  It  knows  nothing  of 
such  mock  immortahties  as  that  which  is  said  to  con- 
sist in  joining  "  choirs  invisible,"  when  in  the  same 
breath  it  is  alleged  that  these  choirs  are  not  vivid,  in- 
tense, and  triumphant  souls,  but  only  the  posthumous 
influences  of  gracious  and  beneficent  lives  that  have 
ceased  for  ever  upon  the  night.  On  these  influences 
the  Christian  message  lays  a  new  and  splendid  emphasis, 
just  because  it  conceives  of  all  human  Uves  as  passing 
on,  each  self  unshorn  of  its  selfhood,  revealed  in  its 
true  and  everlasting  reaHty,  into  realms  of  fuller  action 
and  vaster  experience. 

(2)  Moral  Power  of  the  Christian  Hope. — The  New 
Testament  teaching  about  the  future  Hfe  is  among  the 
most  remarkable,  because  most  potent  and  most  joyous, 
of  all  its  creative  gifts  to  the  human  consciousness. 
With  all  their  usual  characteristic  differences,  these 
apostoHc  writers  agree  in  certain  fundamental  features 
of  their  doctrine.  They  Hved  in  a  world  where  much 
was  said  and  thought  about  the  underworld  to  which 
the  souls  of  men  were  hurried  at  death.  To  most  that 
was  a  mere  region  of  shadows,  and  vain  yearnings  ;  to 
none  was  it  a  Hving  and  purifying  and  inspiring  hope. 
Christianity  alone  made  it  that.  It  taught  that  Christ 
had  opened  the  gates  of  Ufe  to  all  behevers.  As  His 
resurrection  was  a  pledge  to  His  disciples  of  His  un- 
broken union  with  them,  that  union  again  was  a  pledge 

of  their  unbreakable  union  with  Him,  of  their  ultimate 

—  150  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MESSAGE  OF  SALVATION 

share  in  His  resurrection  glory.  The  region  beyond 
death  was  made  definite,  imaginable,  glorious  for  their 
faith  and  love  by  the  Person  of  the  Risen  Christ.  All 
vagueness,  uncertainty,  gloom  had  vanished  from  the 
thought  of  that  which  follows  death.  It  was  replaced 
by  the  certainty  that  the  real  and  everlasting  Lord, 
Jesus  Christ,  most  human  and  most  divine,  would,  nay 
must  by  a  moral  necessity,  bring  the  men,  in  whose 
very  hearts  He  reigned  supreme,  to  the  full  fruition 
of  their  hopes.  "  We  shall  see  Him,"  was  the  song  of 
their  hps.  "  To  depart  and  be  with  Christ  "  was  the 
strong  desire  which  made  prison  cells  the  vestibules  of 
the  heavenly  palace,  and  martyr  fires  the  rapture  of 
their  souls  by  His  victorious  hands.  Over  the  whole 
range  of  the  human  earthly  life  their  hope,  literalljra  new 
hope,  shed  its  ennobhng  and  purifying  light.  A  new 
sanctity  was  seen  in  human  ties,  a  new  grandeur  in 
human  responsibility.  If  for  a  time  in  the  post- Apostolic 
Church  natural  misinterpretation  and  unhealthy  en- 
thusiasm seemed  to  rob  this  world  of  meaning,  and  the 
vast  importance  of  earthly  history  grew  small,  that  only 
proves  how  mighty  and  real  was  the  deliverance  which 
the  non-Christian  spirit  experienced  when  it  passed 
into  the  Christian  faith,  how  glorious  was  this  sense 
of  rebound  from  age-long  despair  to  the  intensity  of  this 
consciousness  of  eternal  Ufe  which  was  possessed  by  each 
heart  in  Jesus  Christ. 

To  sum  up,  it  may  be  said  that  the  substance  of 

the  Christian  salvation  consists,  on  the  one  hand,  in 
—  151  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

a  conscious  union  with  God,  union  which  is  realised 
not  in  ecstasies,  but  in  the  open  moral  fellowship  of  a 
penitent,  trustful  man  with  the  holy  and  merciful  will 
of  the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  consists  in  the  positive  assurance  of 
personal  triumph  over  all  evil.  The  word  evil  must 
here  be  used  in  its  widest  meaning  to  include  sin  working 
through  the  flesh,  misfortune  and  human  sorrow  work- 
ing through  natural  and  social  events  to  bruise  the 
heart  and  daunt  the  faith,  and  death  itself.  "  In  all 
these  things  we  are  more  than  conquerors  "  is  the 
assertion  of  the  spirit  that  has  tasted  the  great  salvation 
and  enjoys  the  peace  of  God.  Nothing  can  be  named  or 
conceived  which  can  "  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God 
which  is  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord"  (Rom.  viii.  31-38). 
That  is  Christian  salvation.  (Compare  with  Rom.  viii. ; 
2  Cor.  iv.  7-v.  10,  xi.  21-xii.  10;  Heb.  xii.  1-13; 
1  Pet.  iii.  8-iv.  5  ;   John  xvi.  1-33  ;  Revelation). 


II.  The  Divine  Acts  of  Salvation. 

The  Christian  religion  is  separated  by  an  immeasur- 
able distance  from  all  others,  in  that  here  alone  God 
is  found  to  have  wrought  out  the  glorious  salvation 
described  above  by  unique,  direct,  immediate  action 
of  His  own  on  the  plains  of  human  history.  Others, 
like  Hinduism  and  Buddhism,  may  try  to  discover  and 
describe  psychological  disciplines  and  moral  machinery 

by  which  the  soul  is  supposed  to  evolve  its  own  deliver- 

—  152  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MESSAGE  OF  SALVATION 

ance,  or  like  Mohammedanism  set  forth  the  law  of 
God  as  a  pathway  by  which  the  righteous  may  travel 
towards  His  far-off  throne  in  the  unseen.  But  the 
gospel  of  Christ  alone  presents  God  as  having  entered 
upon  the  limitations  of  human  experience,  that  He 
might  in  His  own  incarnate  Ufe  reconstruct  from  their 
very  foundations  the  right  moral  relations  of  humanity 
with  HimseK,  and  on  those  establish  the  transcendent 
experience  of  actual,  conscious  fellowship  with  Himself. 
The  essential  condition  for  this  Divine  work  was  of 
course  created  in  the  act  of  Incarnation  which  has 
been  discussed  in  an  earlier  chapter.  Without  resuming 
that  discussion,  it  will  be  enough  here  to  remind  our- 
selves that  the  primary  or  real  end  of  the  Incarnation 
was  to  estabHsh  not  only  physical  or  intellectual, 
but  moral  relations  between  God  and  man.  The  essence 
of  the  great  act  Hes  in  this,  that  the  Divine  Person  does 
not  merely  watch  the  experience  of  human  beings,  how- 
ever sympathetically  or  understandingly  ;  nor  even, 
if  we  may  dare  to  put  it  so,  does  the  Absolute  Con- 
sciousness remain  content  with  its  experience  as  the 
Creator  of  human  nature,  as  the  Lord  of  human  history, 
the  product  and  object  and  burden  of  His  eternal  will. 
There  is  a  further  and  awful  step  by  which  the  Eternal 
Self  willed  to  taste  human  experience  from  the  human 
side,  to  know  it  as  the  created,  dependent,  growing,  strug- 
gling, attaining  human  spirit  alone  can  know  it.  That 
step  was  taken  when  the  Son  of  God  laid  aside  the 
form  of  God,  when  the  Word  became  flesh.  Henceforth 
—  153  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

Grod  knows  both  sides  of  the  fact  of  man,  as  it  appears 
to  the  Creator  and  Lord  of  All  and  as  it  appears  to  the 
creature  in  his  submissive  dependence. 

This  sublime  act  of  God  derives  its  glory  from  the 
purpose  which  prompted  it,  the  great  and  holy  love 
for  man  in  his  sin,  in  the  disaster  which  had  overtaken 
his  soul.  Through  the  Incarnation  an  end  was  to  be 
achieved,  a  work  to  be  done,  which  was  possible  in  no 
other  way.  This  work  may  be  considered  under  three 
heads,  Atonement,  Resurrection,  and  Impartation  of 
the  Holy  Spirit.  These  taken  together  are  the  divine 
acts  which  constitute  the  substance  of  the  gospel  of 
Christ,  and  which  produce  in  receptive  man  the  sub- 
stance of  salvation  described  above. 

1.  The  Atonement. — This  word  is  used  in  Christian 
theology  to  describe  the  At-one-ment  or  making  one 
of  man  and  God  through  the  work  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  and  especially  through  His  sacrifice  on  the 
Cross. 

(1)  The  Gospels  and  the  Death  of  Christ. — The  mere 
fact  that  we  have  the  four  Gospels  before  us,  and  that 
one  of  them  was  written  by  Luke,  the  close  companion 
of  the  Apostle  Paul  on  so  many  of  his  journeys,  proves 
that  the  early  Apostles  did  not  fail  to  appreciate  the 
surpassing  value  of  the  earthly  ministry  and  especially 
of  the  teaching  of  Jesus.  There  is  not  an  Epistle  which 
is  not  saturated  with  its  influence  even  where  verbal 
connection  cannot  be  traced.  But  even  the  Gospels 
reveal  the  exceptional  importance  which  the  ApostoUc 
—  154  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MESSAGE  OF  SALVATION 

Church  as  a  whole,  as  well  as  those  authors,  assigned  to 
the  death  and  resurrection  of  Jesus  by  the  exceptional 
fulness  and  force  with  which  these  events  are  described. 
With  marvellous  care  and  veracity  the  narratives  reveal 
to  us  the  attitude  of  the  various  personaHties  engaged 
in  those  portentous  scenes.  We  must  name  here  only 
the  steady,  unsurprised,  masterful  will  of  Jesus.  That 
He  is  engaged  in  a  task  which  shakes  His  soul  to  the 
depths,  that  for  Him  the  way  to  the  Cross  is  a  long 
agony  whose  elements  are  not  those  of  a  calm  and 
triumphant  martyrdom,  is  thrown  into  startling  per- 
spective by  His  air  of  majesty,  by  the  evidence  that 
His  will  is  not  being  overmastered  by  the  feeble  ingenu- 
ities and  plots  and  malignities  of  men,  but  is  guided 
by  the  purpose  of  the  Father  and  His  own  complete 
absorption  in  that  purpose. 

In  his  own  teaching  it  would  seem  that  He 
had  said  little  about  the  final  meaning  of  His 
death.  Two  sayings,  to  which  we  have  already 
referred,  are,  however,  expHcit  and  sufiicient.  One 
word  from  him  who  is  engaged  in  a  great  work 
may  be  all  we  need  to  reveal  what  that  work  is  for 
his  own  mind,  the  end  he  has  in  view  and  the  reason 
for  his  method.  When,  therefore,  Jesus  says  that  the 
Son  of  Man  had  come  in  order  to  serve  humanity  even 
to  the  extent  of  giving  His  life  as  a  ransom  for  many, 
and  that  His  body  would  be  broken  for  His  disciples, 
His  blood  shed  to  estabhsh  the  New  Covenant,  we  have 
the  fullest  light  thrown  upon  His  own  purpose  as  He 
—  155  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

went  through  such  agony  with  such  majestic  power. 
By  means  of  His  sacrificial  death  He  intended  to  recon- 
struct the  relations  of  God  and  man.  If  we  accept 
those  words  as  His,  if  we  believe  that  at  the  very  centre 
of  the  whole  matter  His  disciples  cannot  have  com- 
pletely misunderstood  and  misrepresented  His  mind, 
then  in  those  last  scenes  we  must  behold  the  Son  of  God 
and  Son  of  Man  as  it  were  getting  within  and  under  the 
whole  moral  system  in  which  God  and  man  are  related, 
and  transforming  it  by  the  fact  that  He  died  as  He 
did,  in  full  consciousness  of  the  reasons  and  issues  of 
His  sublime  deed. 

(2)  The  Apostles  and  the  Cross. — When  we  turn 
to  the  Acts  and  Epistles,  we  find  that  His  purpose  has 
been  fulfilled.  Men  do  Hve  in  new  and  hitherto  un- 
dreamt of  relations  with  the  eternal  and  all-holy  God. 
Christ  incarnate  and  on  the  Cross  has  actually  made 
the  infinite  change.  There  is  no  difference  of  opinion 
among  modern  scholars  about  the  place  which  the 
Apostles  assign  to  that  redeeming  death.  They  all 
speak  of  it  as  connected  in  the  deepest  and  most  vital 
way  with  the  forgiveness  of  sin  and  entrance  upon 
the  life  of  reconciliation  with  God  (Gal.  3  ;  Rom.  3  ; 
Heb.  ix.  X. ;  1  John  4).  In  a  large  number  of  cases 
they  refer  in  a  general  and  yet  definite  manner  to  the 
fact  that  He  died  on  our  behalf,  that  He  bore  our  sins,  that 
in  His  death  God  condemned  sin  and  revealed  righteous- 
ness, that  in  this  act — the  central  act  in  the  relations  of 

God  to  human  history — God  revealed  or  made  avail- 
-  is6- 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MESSAGE  OF  SALVATION 

able  for  the  appropriation  of  men  a  divine,  complete, 
and  life-giving  righteousness.  In  some  cases  they 
use  language  which  is  in  harmony  with  the  word  "  ran- 
som "  used  by  Jesus  in  Mark  x.  45  (1  Cor.  vi.  20, 
vii.  23  ;  1  Pet.  i.  18).  In  a  much  larger  number  they 
associate  the  meaning  and  power  of  his  work  on  the 
Cross  with  the  sacrificial  system  of  the  Old  Testament, 
often  with  special  emphasis  upon  the  shedding  of  His 
blood,  thus  harmonising  with  that  other  great  saying 
of  His  at  the  Last  Supper  (Rom.  iii.  25,  26 ;  Gal. 
iii.  10-18;  Heb.  ix.  x. ;  "blood"  in  1  Pet.  i.  10;  Rev.  i.  5, 
etc. ;  "  propitiation  "  in  1  John  ii.  2,  iv.  10,  etc.). 

(3)  The  Modern  Dislike  of  this  Doctrine. — Much  of 
the  modern  revolt  against  the  doctrine  of  the  Atone- 
ment is  due  to  the  influence  of  two  ideas.  In  the  first 
place,  it  has  been  too  often  described  as  if  it  were  a  kind 
of  legal  formality,  as  if  God  had  merely  defended  Him- 
self before  the  law,  an  institution  above  His  own  will, 
a  bar  at  which  even  He  must  be  tried  for  showing  mercy 
to  man.  In  the  second  place,  it  has  been  too  often 
described  as  if  sin  and  its  penalties  were  quantities  in 
an  account  book  which  could  be  transferred  by  a  legal 
process  from  one  person  to  another,  as  if  the  sinless  Son 
of  God  by  enduring  infinite  penalties  could  cancel  the 
claims  of  the  law  against  the  infinite  guilt  of  man. 
It  is  clear  that  such  ideas  of  the  work  of  Atonement 
are  too  easy,  too  superficial,  to  explain  so  great  a  deed. 
And  yet  it  is  also  clear  that  it  would  be  as  truly  super- 
ficial and  easy-going  to  dismiss  the  whole  matter  as 
—  157  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

absurd  and  morally  impossible.  The  Christian  experi- 
ence of  reconciHation  with  God  is  real  and  unique,  and 
its  dependence  upon  the  death  of  Christ  not  only  per- 
vades the  entire,  vast  course  of  Christian  history,  but 
is  traceable  to  His  own  consciousness,  to  His  own  mind 
and  will  through  the  Apostles  whom  He  taught  and 
inspired.  Somehow  He  did  by  His  sacrifice  on  the 
Cross  really  change  the  moral  relations  of  God  and  man. 
We  must  be  content  with  a  very  brief  statement  of 
the    matter. 

(4)  The  Cost  of  Righteousness  in  a  World  of  Sin. — 
When  the  gospel  went  forth  it  was  the  announcement  to 
all  the  world  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God.  In  other  words,  it 
was  the  announcement  that  God  has  willed  to  forgive  the 
sins  of  all  who  repent  and  put  their  trust  in  Him,  and  to 
unite  each  believer  with  Himself  in  His  own  Spirit  of  life 
and  hoKness  and  love.  But  in  this  offer  of  mercy  God  is 
deaUng  with  His  own  relations  to  the  history  of  man,  as 
well  as  with  man's  historical  relations  with  Him.  What 
are  His  moral  relations  with  man  ?  They  rise  from  His 
original  purpose  to  produce  in  human  nature  a  kind  of 
righteousness  which  is  only  possible  where  free  will  exists, 
and  where  the  will,  the  character  of  God  is  loved  and 
chosen  and  obeyed  at  all  costs  and  above  all  other  attrac- 
tions. This  is  the  meaning  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  which 
can  be  nothing  else  than  a  society  of  free  spirits,  of  moral 
beings,  in  each  and  all  of  whom  His  own  holy  nature  is 
perfectly  reflected.     Throughout  the  history  of  man's 

conscience  and  His  deaUngs  with  man's  character,  that 

-  158  - 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MESSAGE  OF  SALVATION 

has  been  the  object  of  God.  But  since  man  has  sinned, 
the  fulfilment  of  that  glorious  end  can  only  be  accom- 
plished through  an  initial  act  on  God's  side  of  forgive- 
ness which  shall  produce,  on  man's  side,  repentance  and 
trust.  Manifestly  this  cannot  be  done  in  a  mere  verbal 
offer.  Words  alone  have  no  weight  with  conscience,  for 
in  conscience  one  self  faces  another  self  in  concrete 
relations.  It  must  have  deeds  in  which  the  very  self  is 
given,  in  which  the  very  relations  are  estabHshed  which 
words  shall  henceforth  describe  and  urge.  Words  open 
doors,  but  deeds  rear  the  structures,  the  shrine  of  the 
Spirit,  to  which  they  admit.  The  word  of  the  gospel 
presupposes  some  living  relation  of  which  it  is  the  expres- 
sion, some  act  of  God  which  burns  its  way  to  passionate 
utterance  through  hearts  upon  whom  its  weight  and 
glory  fell.     This  act  we  have  in  the  offering  of  Christ. 

But  that  deed  on  the  Cross  was  the  fulfilment  of 
righteousness  !  The  eternal,  primal  ideal  of  God,  so  to 
speak,  concerning  man  was  now  an  accomphshed  fact. 
No  longer  did  he  behold  His  idea  of  a  righteous  man  and 
actual  man  in  direct  contrast  to  one  another.  A  free 
will  had  now  lived  and  died  under  human  conditions 
which  had  trusted,  obeyed  His  will  out  of  perfect  love 
and  in  face  of  the  utmost  trial.  The  Righteous  Man 
was  at  last  a  fact. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  this  great  deed  was  conditioned 
throughout  its  history  by  the  presence  and  fact  of  human 
sin.  It  was  sin  that  brought  the  severest  pressure  to 
bear  upon  that  holy  will  of  Jesus,  sin  that  tempted  Him, 

—  159  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

opposed  Him,  betrayed  Him,  hated  Him,  condemned  Him 
through  human  hearts.  He  even  seems  to  have  tasted 
that  deepest  and  last  of  all  the  issues  of  sin,  the  sense  of 
derehction,  the  mysterious  and  awful  desolation  of  soul 
which  made  Him  cry  out,  "  My  God,  my  God,  why  hast 
Thou  forsaken  Me  ?  "  In  that  darkness  He  tasted  death 
indeed,  and  yet  held  on  in  His  way  of  trust,  founding  His 
faith  on  God  even  when  all  reality  seemed  to  slip  from 
under  His  soul.  Christ  paid  the  utmost  price  of  righteous- 
ness where  all  seemed  fashioned  and  concentrated  for  its 
destruction.  In  Him  through  that  death  on  the  Cross 
God  stands  in  a  new,  concrete  relation  both  with  the 
righteousness  which  He  had  planned,  and  which  the 
human  consciousness  had  failed  to  attain,  and  with  the 
sin  which  had  become  the  real  moral  quality  of  man. 
Sin  had  been  endured  by  God  in  Christ,  and 
righteousness  had  been  made  real  by  God  in  Christ,  and 
each  of  them  involved  the  other.  In  the  very  act  of 
proving,  as  Christ  did,  that  there  is  nothing  He  would 
not  pay  as  the  price  of  righteousness,  He  revealed  in 
the  heart  agonies  of  a  Uving  self  the  divine  hatred  and 
eternal  condemnation  of  sin.  The  eternal  will  is  reahzed 
in  the  temporal  fact.  Henceforth  God  lives  in  a  new 
relation  with  the  moral  history  and  nature  of  man. 

(5)  The  Cost  of  Love  for  a  World  in  Sin. — But  this 
strange  story  of  the  heart  of  God,  this  most  wonderful 
revelation  of  the  character  of  God,  not  in  general  human 
fortunes  and  not  in  prophetic  utterances,  but  in  an 

experience  which  was  God's  own  experience,  in  a  deed 

—  i6o  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MESSAGE  OF  SALVATION 

which  was  God's  deed  upon  HimseK,  within  the  con- 
ditions of  humanity,  had  a  purpose  beyond  itself.  "  God 
spared  not  His  Son,  but  deHvered  Him  up  for  us  all." 
"  God  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only- 
begotten  Son."  If  He  has  proved  that  there  is  no 
price  He  would  not  pay  for  righteousness,  and  so  con- 
demned sin  in  the  very  act  of  realising  that  righteous- 
ness, He  has  also  proved  that  there  is  no  price  He  will 
not  pay,  save  only  righteousness  itself,  for  love  of  the 
sinner.  Here  we  touch  the  incredible  and  inestimable 
thing  which  we  call  mercy.  For  it  is  just  conscience 
itseK,  with  its  sense  of  guilt,  of  utter  unworthiness, 
which  finds  an  infinite  difficulty  in  accepting  the  assur- 
ance of  the  love  of  God.  It  is  not  the  prevalence  of 
evil,  not  the  mystery  of  suffering,  which  has  thrown  the 
darkest  shadow  upon  the  name  of  God.  It  is  the  sense 
of  sin.  From  that  has  arisen  the  dread  of  God,  the 
conviction  that  He  must,  just  because  He  is  the  holy 
and  righteous  One,  stand  opposed  for  ever  to  the  will  that 
had  made  sin  its  life  and  found  in  self  instead  of  God  the 
spring  and  end  of  conduct.  The  awakened  conscience 
does  not  adopt  the  easy  way  of  some  modern  theologians 
and  distinguish  between  sin  and  the  sinner,  concluding 
that  God  sees  them  apart.  Rather  does  it  identify  sin 
and  self  so  as  to  say  and  feel,  "  I  am  the  sinner,  with- 
out me  my  sin  would  not  exist.  The  stain  and  shame 
rests  on  me,  and  not  on  a  mere  abstraction  called  sin. 
The  only  way  to  destroy  my  sin  is  to  destroy  myseK, 

for  sin  is  the  quality  of  my  will  in  the  actual  relation  in 
II  —  i6i  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

which  I  have  lived."    It  is  upon  the  heart  that  so  speaks 
that  the  love  of  God  falls  from  the  Cross  of  Christ. 

There  is  no  explaining  love,  there  can  be  no  exposition 
or  defence  of  mercy.  It  flows  from  that  in  the  very  being 
of  God  which  is  beyond  the  reach  of  reason,  and  could  not 
have  been  invented  by  the  most  daring  imagination  of 
man.  To  grasp  the  love  of  God,  before  Christ,  man  must 
have  transcended  the  realm  of  conscience,  have  passed 
beyond  the  judgment  bar  to  invade  the  inviolate  heart 
of  the  Eternal,  which  was  inconceivable  and  impossible. 
But  in  the  death  of  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  the  reverse 
movement  has  taken  place.  It  is  God  who  has  invaded 
the  violated  soul  of  man,  who  has  brought  the  scene  of 
judgment  upon  the  plane  of  history,  and  through  the  very 
horror  upon  the  Cross  has  revealed  love  for  man,  and 
the  will  to  take  him  into  sonship  and  holy  peace.  That 
work  of  reaUsing  the  Divine  righteousness  was  not  done 
merely  for  its  own  sake,  but  that  God  might  so  reach  the 
heart  through  the  conscience  of  man.  The  will  to  save 
was  in  it  all.  Love  for  each  and  all  of  the  sons  of  man,  in 
their  uniform  defeat  and  universal  unworthiness,  carried 
the  heart  of  Christ,  the  will  of  God  in  Him,  through  all 
the  agony  and  darkness.  "  He  loved  me  and  gave 
Himself  up  for  me  "  became  henceforth  the  fact  for  all 
men. 

We  have   dehberately  avoided  Scriptural  language 

and  the  usual  technical  terms  in  these  paragraphs,  not 

because    they  are    false    or    inadequate,  but   in  order 

if  possible  to  bring  out  this  one  fact,  that  on  the  Cross 

—  162  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MESSAGE  OF  SALVATION 

God  did  actually  assume  new  personal  relations  with 
the  fact  of  sin  in  the  race  of  man.  There  was  no  for- 
mahty.  He  was  not  bowing  to  the  authority  of  a 
power  above  Himself.  He  was  not  defending  Himself 
against  the  criticism  of  angels  or  of  men  for  the  offer  of 
pardon.  He  was  making  it  possible  to  grant  forgiveness 
by  entering  personally  into  relations  with  the  moral 
history  of  man  which  are  righteous  and  holy,  and  by 
doing  so  from  the  motive  of  an  eternal  love  and  for  the 
purposes  of  a  free  and  pure  and  cleansing  mercy.  But 
when  so  much  has  been  seen  it  becomes  quite  clear  that 
all  the  varied  modes  of  New  Testament  illustration  and 
description  of  the  atoning  act  are  justified.  He  did  suffer, 
"  the  righteous  for  the  unrighteous,  that  He  might  bring 
us  to  God  "  (1  Pet.  iii.  18).  His  blood  was  shed  for  the 
remission  of  sins  (Heb.  ix.  14-22),  and  God  set  Him  forth 
in  His  blood  as  the  object  of  our  trust  (Rom.  iii.  25).  He 
did  bear  our  sins  in  His  own  body  on  the  tree,  and  by 
His  stripes  we  are  healed.  God  did  in  Him,  as  an  offering 
for  sin,  condemn  sin  ;  and  He  did  it  in  the  flesh,  under 
the  conditions  of  a  human  experience  where  hitherto 
sin  had  reigned  supreme,  rebuked  by  the  law  but 
triumphant  through  the  flesh,  carried  on  and  confirmed 
by  the  mere  momentum  of  human  habit  and  organised 
custom  (Rom.  viii.  3).  Until  these  things  were  done 
forgiveness  could  have  no  meaning  but  a  bad  one,  and 
the  offer  of  it  no  attraction  for  the  conscience  of  man. 
But  a  pardon  offered  by  God  in  his  new  relations  with 
the  moral  universe,  based  on  the  righteousness  He  has 

- 163  - 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

made  real  in  time,  on  the  sin  He  has  personally  endured, 
on  the  holy  love  from  which  His  wondrous  deed  has 
come,  is  a  boon  so  pure  and  high  and  blessed  that  it 
must  break  the  proud  self-will  and  release  the  stifled 
yearnings  of  the  soul  of  man  for  life  in  God. 

2.  The  Resurrection. — The  second  stage  in  the  work 
of  salvation  was  the  Resurrection  of  Christ.     He  was 
"  raised  again  for  our  justification  "  (Rom.  iv.  25).     It 
goes  without  saying  that,  so  far  as  the  records  and  all 
the  human  probabiHties  go,  the  Crucifixion  would  have 
utterly  destroyed  the  faith  of  the  disciples.     It  was  His 
revelation  as  the  Risen  Christ  which  estabhshed  His 
Messiahship,  defined  and  disclosed  His  eternal  Sonship 
(Rom.  i.   4),  and  awoke   that   characteristic   Christian 
faith  which  has  continued  from  that  day  to  this.     It  is 
right,  of  course,  to  emphasise  the  fact  that  if  death  is 
a  great  fact  in  relation  not  only  to  man's  physical  but 
also  to  his  moral  experience,  then  the  Sinless  One  could 
not  be  permanently  held  in  its  grasp.     But  it  is  also  of 
vital  importance  to  grasp  the  idea  that  through  the 
process  of  resurrection  Jesus  completed  the  ideal  of  a 
human  Ufe.     The  Perfect  Man  stood  realised  and  re- 
vealed in  all  the  quahties  of  perfection,  physical  and 
natural,  as  well  as  moral  and  spiritual.     For  the  universe 
is  one,  and  man's  experience  must  ultimately  be  all  of 
a  piece.     The  physical  is  no  mere  fleeting  incident  in 
his  relations.     It  is  as  real  and  as  essential  as  any  other 
conditions  of  his  active  life.     It  too  is  part  of  the  moral 

order  of  God  which  we  call  the  universe,  and  has  part 

—  164  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MESSAGE  OF  SALVATION 

and  lot  in  the  final  outcome  of  all  things  (Rom.  viii.  ; 
Col.  i.).  That  is  for  ever  made  clear  and  sure  and, 
beyond  all  telling,  a  glad  and  glorious  fact,  in  the 
resurrection  of  Christ  from  the  dead.  He  has  won  and 
revealed  the  eternal  destiny  of  human  nature,  and  in 
Him,  again,  risen  from  the  dead,  God  stands  in  relations 
to  His  created  universe  which  are  fundamentally  new 
and  which  enable  His  rational  creatures  to  enter  into 
new  relations  with  Him,  apprehending  their  destiny 
and  working  their  conscious  will  into  His  grand  scheme 
of  things. 

3.  The  Gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit.— The  third  and  final 
element  in  this  method  of  salvation  is  known  as  the 
giving  or  sending  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Historically,  as 
we  learn  from  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  (chaps,  i.  and  ii.), 
the  consciousness  of  the  disciples  was  not  fully  developed 
into  its  Christian  form,  even  after  the  revelation  to 
them  of  their  Risen  Lord.  A  great  gladness  was  indeed 
thrilhng  their  hearts,  but  there  was  a  pause  of  ex- 
pectancy. Something  was  still  lacking,  and  they  but 
dimly  reahsed  it.  With  Pentecost  the  climax  was  fully 
attained.  That  overwhelming  experience  became  to 
them  the  permanent  assurance  that  God  Himself,  in 
His  Spirit,  had  verily  united  Himself  with  them  as  a 
community  and  as  individual  souls.  No  longer  were 
they  as  forlorn  spirits  seeking  rest  and  finding  none  ;  no 
longer  as  children  in  a  darkened  house  feeUng  about, 
and  in  vain,  for  the  reality  and  presence  of  God.     In 

their  consciousness  the  human  spirit  and  the  Divine  were 
-  165  - 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

made  one  in  the  daylight  of  pure  personal  relations. 
That  fact  is,  as  we  have  already  seen,  reflected  through- 
out the  writings  of  the  New  Testament.  Not  in  esoteric 
terms  is  it  described,  nor  is  it  reserved  for  a  few  and 
rare  souls  whose  leisure  or  opportunities  might  make 
laboured  and  technical  disciplines  possible.  This 
supreme  gift,  the  pouring  of  the  Spirit  of  God  into  the 
human  heart,  is  offered  to  all  men  through  repentance 
and  faith.  Busy  men  continuing  their  daily  toil,  plain 
and  untutored  women  whose  hearts  are  moved  by  the 
story  of  Jesus  and  the  vision  of  the  divine  grace,  may 
all  know  the  fulness  of  the  Christian  salvation  and 
receive  into  humble,  penitent,  and  trusting  hearts  the 
indweUing  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  realised  ineffable 
union  with  God. 

A  final  word  should  be  said  on  one  matter  of  practical 
importance,  both  for  individual  faith  and  the  preaching 
of  the  gospel.  That  gospel  should  never  be  represented 
as  an  abstract  scheme,  as  a  plan  worked  out  to  com- 
pletion apart  from  human  hearts,  and  then  at  last  as  a 
completed  whole  thrust  upon  human  attention.  Christ 
wrought  out  His  salvation  from  step  to  step  upon  actual 
living  men  and  women.  His  earliest  influences  as  the 
Saviour  of  the  world,  when  He  began  to  manifest  His 
quaUty  and  Person,  were  exerted  upon  a  group  of  people 
with  whom  and  upon  whom  the  whole  force  of  His  whole 
work  was  brought  to  bear.  Stage  by  stage  He  carried 
them  with  Him,  so  that  His  salvation  never  for  a  moment, 

as  it  were,  hung  fire,  but  at  each  moment  of  its  gradual 

—  166  — 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MESSAGE  OF  SALVATION 

achievement  and  its  unfolding  took  efEect  upon  that 
little  community  and  each  member  of  it.  It  was  an 
organic  process,  a  living,  effectual  act  of  God  upon  the 
human  consciousness  throughout  the  necessary  stages 
by  which  it  was  wrought  to  its  completion.  God  did 
then  and  there  create  for  Himself,  and  enter  into  new 
personal  or  ethical  relations  with  men,  in  such  a  way 
that  when  all  was  done  a  community  had  been  formed 
in  which  the  divine  life  was  actually  present.  This 
community  knew  itself  to  be  organically  united  with 
God  through  Jesus  Christ,  its  living,  actual,  controlHng 
Head.  There  was  no  salvation  wrought  out  as  an 
abstract  plan.  A  saved  community,  the  Church  of 
Christ  was  created,  henceforth  to  be  in  the  world  as 
at  once  the  sphere  within  which  the  power  of  God  is 
effective  and  the  organ  by  which  that  power  shall 
transform  the  whole  world. 


—  167  — 


CHAPTER   VII 

THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FAITH 

A  MONG  the  many  distinctive  features  of  the 
-^-^  Christian  message  to  the  world,  we  must  place 
its  supreme  emphasis  upon  the  principle  of  faith. 
There  was  always  in  the  world,  as  we  shall  see,  a  certain 
amount  of  faith,  enough  to  keep  some  kind  of  gods 
in  view,  enough  to  hold  society  together  on  its  various 
levels  of  civilisation.  But  nowhere  in  the  history  of 
religion  or  of  philosophic  thought  before  Christ  do  we 
j&nd  that  the  real  meaning  and  scope  of  faith  had 
been  discovered.  For  instance,  in  the  Old  Testament 
we  have  a  certain  emphasis  upon  the  demand  that  the 
people  shall  believe  the  messages  of  the  prophets  and 
shall  put  their  trust  in  the  protecting  power  of  Jehovah. 
But  nowhere  save  in  a  passing  phrase,  on  which  after- 
wards the  Apostle  Paul  eagerly  seized  (Hab.  ii.  4;  cf .  Rom. 
i.  17  ;  Gal.  iii.  11),  do  we  find  that  this  act  of  faith 
in  Jehovah  or  faithfulness  to  Him  is  selected  from 
the  other  elements  of  their  rehgious  consciousness 
and  set  on  the  throne  of  supremacy.  The  rehgious  life 
of  Israel  was  still  under  the  power  of  ceremonies  and 

rites,  of  the  effort  to  deserve  the  approval  of  God  by 

—  i68  — 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FAITH 

meritorious  sacrifices  and  legal  obedience.  Or,  again, 
in  the  philosophy  of  Greece,  while  we  find  that  justice, 
courage,  temperance,  and  other  virtues  are  emphasised, 
none  but  an  incidental  reference  can  be  found  to  that 
mutual  trust  on  which  all  solid  cities  are  founded.  But 
in  the  New  Testament,  and  throughout  the  history  of 
Christianity,  faith  comes  to  the  front.  It  is  discovered 
to  be  the  fundamental  act  by  which  man  stands  related 
to  God,  the  organ  of  the  soul  by  which  it  lays  hold  of 
the  treasures  of  life  offered  in  Christ. 


I.  The  Teaching  of  Jesus  about  Faith 

It  was,  of  course,  in  the  ministry  of  Jesus,  and  in 

His  full  influence  on  the  relations  of  His  disciples  to  God, 

that  this  principle  first  came  to  light  and  the  Christian 

faith  was  born!     Jesus  Himself  nowhere  expounds  the 

nature  and  working  of  faith.     He  does  not  formally 

compare  it  with  other  methods  of  religious  action,  nor 

discuss  it  as  His  Apostles  and  the  theologians  of  His 

Church  had  to  do  in  later  times.     He  had  something 

far  more  vital  and  fundamental  than  that  to  accomplish. 

It  was  His  work  to  create  the  new  relations  between 

man  and  God,  and  to  produce  that  faith  in  which  alone 

those  relations  could  be  realised  and  made  henceforth 

the   groundwork   of   the  history  of    our   race.     To   be 

brief,  we  must  confine  our  summary  of  the  matter  to 

four  points  : 

1.  Trust   in   Himself. — The   primary   and   essential 
—  169  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

thing  to  secure  was  the  trust  of  His  disciples  in  Himself. 
This  at  first  was  probably  in  their  minds,  admiration 
and  confidence  rendered  to  a  great  teacher — a  prophet 
sent  from  God.  Then  it  became  a  gradually  deepening 
appreciation  of  His  moral  quality  in  its  strange  and 
baffling  and  humbling  perfection.  Then  it  became 
ftwe,  and  at  times  even  fear,  at  His  miraculous  powers, 
His  superhuman  dealing  with  disease  and  other  facts 
of  nature  (Luke  v.  8).  Then  it  became  the  consciousness 
that  He  was  conveying  to  others  a  new  knowledge 
of  God,  a  new  outlook  upon  the  world,  that  He  was  the 
Messiah,  the  Saviour  of  the  people  (Matt.  xvi.  16 ; 
John  vi.  68).  They  saw  in  Him  one  whose  own  unbroken 
harmony  with  God  was  the  only  hope  they  could  imagine 
for  their  own  elevation  somehow,  some  day,  into  that 
harmony,  with  its  peace,  purity,  energy,  and  joy.  Thus 
they  were  almost  insensibly,  yet  not  without  intense 
discussion  and  wonderment,  led  into  a  habitual  faith 
in  Him  which  was  the  deepest  and  strongest  fact  in 
their  conscious  lives. 

2.  Trust  in  God. — All  through  His  work  among  them 
Jesus  was  continually  leading  His  disciples,  as  we  saw 
in  the  second  chapter,  to  a  personal  faith  in  God. 
"  Have  faith  in  God,"  He  explicitly  said  to  those  men 
who  all  their  lives  had  thought  they  believed  in  Jehovah. 
His  teaching  about  the  Fatherhood  of  God  was  intended 
to  evoke  this  act  of  trust  in  His  power  and  love.  They 
must  trust  in  Him  for  the  pardon  of  their  sins  (Matt. 
vi.  18),  for  the  good  things  we  have  need  of  in  raiment 

I/O   — 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FAITH 

and  food  (ver.  30).  Wherever  He  went  He  laid  an  entirely 
new  emphasis  on  this  attitude.  He  rebuked  the  dis- 
ciples repeatedly  for  lack  of  faith  ;  at  Nazareth  He  could 
not  do  His  mighty  works  because  of  unbehef ;  He 
witnessed  the  unexpected  faith  of  the  centurion ;  He 
declared  that  faith,  as  a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  could 
remove  mountains  of  difficulty  from  human  lives. 
Without  defining  or  discussing  it  in  any  formal  way. 
He  fixed  attention  upon  it  as  the  deepest  law  of  their 
relationship  with  God  and  with  Himself  (John  xiv.  1). 

3.  Ignoring  other  Methods. — Besides  all  this  we  must 
remember  the  significance  of  the  neglect  which  Jesus 
showed  towards  the  traditional  modes  of  approach  to 
God.  He  appears  to  have  ignored  the  ceremonies  of  the 
temple,  and,  as  we  saw  in  an  earlier  chapter  (Chap.  V.), 
He  turned  attention  away  from  the  verbal  precision  of 
legalism  to  the  free  action  of  an  enlightened  conscience. 
He  did  demand  impHcit  and  complete  obedience  to  the 
commandments  of  God,  but  it  must  flow  from  this 
inner  fife  of  faith  and  love,  and  a  conscience  at  rest. 
When  He  described  the  return  of  the  prodigal  son, 
when  He  forgave  the  sins  of  the  paralytic  and  the  sinful 
woman.  He  revealed  the  power  which  their  faith  exer- 
cised even  over  God. 

4.  His  Victory  and  their  Faith. — At  last,  when  He 
had  seemed  to  establish  and  perfect  the  faith  of  His 
disciples  in  God  and  in  Himself,  He  went  on  to  death, 
and  beheld  with  grief  but  not  surprise  the  perturbation 
into    which    His  apparently  dismal    fate    must    throw 

—  171  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

the  minds  and  the  unripe  confidence  of  His  followers. 
Then  came  the  power  of  His  Resurrection,  then  the 
blessing  of  His  indwelling  Spirit.  Those  Jews  found 
themselves  in  a  new  world,  "  begotten  again,"  as  one 
of  them  said,  "  unto  a  living  hope."  But  in  that  new 
world  what  was  the  substance  of  their  life,  the  solid 
ground  beneath  their  feet  ?  All  their  accustomed 
means  of  confidence  had  been  swept  entirely  away. 
Not  sacrificial  rites,  not  priestly  ablutions,  not  painful 
and  perfect  observance  of  formal  enactments,  not  the 
temple  nor  the  altar,  not  the  synagogue  any  more 
than  the  mountains  and  the  stars,  had  wrought  this 
amazing  change  upon  their  souls.  When  they  looked 
they  found  in  themselves  but  one  fact,  one  act,  on 
which  heaven  seemed  to  rest :  it  was  their  confidence, 
their  faith  in  the  Risen  Saviour  and  in  God  through 
Him.  Nothing  in  the  moral  universe  bound  them  to 
God  but  that.  Hence,  when  their  fellow-citizens  chal- 
lenged them  to  explain  this  wonder  that  had  come  to 
them,  Peter  and  his  fellow- witnesses  found  it  impossible 
to  give  to  them  any  other  secret  than  this,  that  they 
should  repent  and  believe.  Faith  had  now  begun 
openly,  explicitly,  and  in  glorious  solitude  of  majesty 
to  rule  the  world. 


II.  The  Teaching  of  Paul  about  Faith 

In  spite  of  these  facts,  it  was  not  the  earUest  group 

of  disciples,  Peter  and  James  (the  Lord's  brother),  and 

—  172  — 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FAITH 

the  rest  who  first  measured  the  full  range  of  this  mighty 
revolution  in  the  religious  history  of  man.  They  knew 
that  they  were  saved  by  faith  in  Jesus  the  Messiah  and 
in  God  who  had  raised  Him  from  the  dead,  but  they 
continued  to  haunt  the  temple  as  if  it  were  stiU  somehow 
the  earthly  centre  of  their  new  fellowship.  It  required 
the  experience  of  another  set  of  men  to  discover  the 
full  power  and  reach  of  the  new  reUgion,  and  to  help 
the  primary  apostles  to  see  it  too.  Such  men  were 
Stephen  (Acts  vii.),  Paul,  the  unknown  author  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and  others,  who  all  seem  to 
have  been  born  and  brought  up  beyond  Palestine  and 
to  have  breathed  the  air  of  non- Jewish  culture.  It 
was  they  who  disentangled  from  its  fatal  association 
with  the  past  reUgious  principles  of  Judaism,  the  real 
and  pure  gospel  of  grace  and  of  faith.  We  must  devote 
a  Uttle  space  to  the  work  of  Paul  and  of  that  unknown 
author  on  this  vital  matter  to  make  it  clear. 

1.  The  Revelation  of  Christ  to  him. — Saul  of  Tarsus 
before  his  conversion  had  given  the  marvellous  energy 
of  his  rehgious  genius  to  the  fulfilment  of  the  Jewish 
law  as  the  only  way  of  righteousness  and  the  only  way 
to  peace  with  Grod.  His  own  reminiscent  words  in 
Phihppians  iii.  and  Romans  vii.  seem  to  indicate  that 
this  effort  was  felt  by  himself  to  be  a  failure.  The  law 
had  condemned  him  in  his  own  conscience  even  when 
he  was  found  blameless  by  men.  But  his  convictions 
were  unbroken  and  his  zeal  unbounded.  He  undertook 
a  fierce  and  elaborate  persecution  of  the  Church  if  haply 
—  173  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

he  might  please  God  by  the  destruction  of  those  despic- 
able worshippers  of  the  crucified  One,  those  enemies 
of  law  and  temple  (Acts  vi.  13,  14).  Through  all,  even 
of  these  zealous  labours,  no  voice  spoke  peace  to  his 
heart,  and  the  righteousness  of  God  remained  as  far 
beyond  his  reach  as  heaven  itself.  But  Avhen  that  voice 
broke  the  stillness  of  the  skies,  "  I  am  Jesus  whom 
thou  persecutest,"  the  dark  and  turbulent  night  of  his 
spirit  ended  suddenly.  Saul,  the  blasphemer  and 
persecutor,  received  the  inexplicable  mercy  of  the 
Risen  Christ,  the  Son  of  God.  With  that  mercy  the 
very  righteousness  of  God  descended  upon  him.  He 
knew  this  because  he  found  himself  in  the  fellowship  of 
the  Holy  One.  Who  can  measure  the  amazement  of 
that  great  heart  and  the  change  wrought  upon  that  im- 
perial intellect !  At  one  stroke  he  saw  all  the  laborious 
machinery  of  the  law  swept  aside.  The  righteous  God 
had  come  to  him  by  the  royal  road  of  love. 

2.  His  Discovery  of  Faith. — But  what  in  his  human 
nature  corresponded  to  that  movement  of  the  Divine 
will  ?  It  was  not  righteousness,  because  mercy  had 
overtaken  him  on  the  road  of  rebelHon,  of  ungodly 
hate,  of  blasphemy  and  murder.  And  now  as  he  sat 
there  blind  and  silent  in  the  house  of  Judas  in  Damascus, 
or  later  as  he  spent  his  three  great  years  of  brooding 
solitude  "in  Arabia,"  what  did  he  find  in  himself,  as 
his  act,  responsive  to  the  deed  of  God  which  transformed 
His  whole  life  ?  He  found  only  one  thing,  and  its  name 
was  Faith.     "  I  now  live  in  the  flesh  in  faith,  the  faith 

—  174  — 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FAITH 

which  is  in  the  Son  of  God,  who  loved  me  and  gave 
Himself  up  for  me  "  (Gal.  ii.  20).  "  By  grace  "  had  he 
"  been  saved  through  faith  "  (Eph.  ii.  8).  He  gave 
up  completely  all  other  efforts  and  grounds  of  confid- 
ence, which  had  never  yielded  true  confidence,  before 
God ;  he  flung  them  aside  as  refuse,  and  found  "  the 
righteousness  which  is  from  God  by  faith  "  (Phil.  iii.  9). 
Through  that  great  heart  of  Paul,  in  this  discovery 
of  a  new  world-order,  a  new  way  of  God  with  man,  Christ 
had  found  at  last  His  entrance  to  the  heart  of  the  world, 
and  the  new  era  of  man's  spiritual  being  was  opened, 
to  the  wonder  of  angels  and  joy  on  the  throne  of  the 
universe.  The  absolute  and  final  and  universal  reUgion 
had  been  fully  estabUshed  in  the  grasp  of  a  human  mind, 
and  the  gospel  could  now  be  proclaimed  to  the  whole 
creation.  The  supreme  missionary  enterprise  had  begun 
its  true  history. 

3.  His  Battle  for  the  New  Truth. — We  must  remember 
that  nothing  happens  in  our  world  without  struggle. 
There  is  strain  and  stress  among  the  stars,  out  of  which 
their  harmony  is  sung.  There  is  clash  and  competition 
in  the  quiet  of  the  meadow  and  forest  glades,  and  rush- 
ing beneath  the  most  placid  summer  sea.  Even  among 
the  early  group  of  Apostles  the  gospel  of  faith  did  not 
win  its  way  without  heart-burning  [  and]^Jcontroversy. 
We  have  seen  how  deep  was  the  amazement  of  the 
original  Church  at  Jerusalem  when  it  was  found  that 
even  Gentiles  received  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit  of  God.    The 

leaders  acknowledged  the  unexpected  wonder    as    the 

—  175  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

act  of  God,  and  a  compact  of  peace  was  made  between 

the  two  sections  which  temperament,  or  habit  wrought 

by  training,  rather  than  difference  of  conviction,  tended 

to  form  among  them.     But  not  all  would  follow  such 

noble-hearted    leaders    in    the    way    of    peace.     Some 

remained   bitterly   hostile   to   the   policy   of   receiving 

Gentiles  uncircumcised  into  the  Church,  and  they  were 

so  vigorous  and  relentless  that  even  Peter  was  made 

hesitant  and  inconsistent  by  their  force  of  will  (Gal. 

ii.  11  ff.).     These  men,  whose  names  and  relation  to  the 

Church  remain  in  obscure  mystery,  quickly  found  that 

Paul  was  the  real  leader  and  most  powerful  Apostle, 

and  they  invaded  many  of  his  fields  of  labour  to  undo 

his  work.     To  their  deadly  hatred  of  his  gospel  and 

active  antagonism  we  owe  the  Apostle's  great  letter 

to  the  Galatians  and  passages  in  other  letters,  especially 

that  sent  to   the   Romans,   which   deal  with   the   new 

and  creative   principle  of   faith.     He   has   three   chief 

lines  of  argument : 

(1)  His  First  Defence  :   Experience. — First,  he  boldly 

and  firmly  takes  his  stand  on  the  ground  of  experience. 

He  can  take  his  own  case,  as  of  one  who  with  utmost 

devotion  and  sincerity  had  tried  the   method  of  the 

law,  which  those  enemies  were  urging  upon  his  converts. 

None  of  them  had  put  more  confidence  in  it  or  pursued 

its  principles  with  greater  success  (Phil.  iii.  3-6  ;    Rom. 

vii.  7-25;    Gal.  i.  13,  14).     Yet  it  had  utterly  failed; 

and  it  had  fallen  away  from  him  into  a  dead  past  when 

the  Risen  Christ  was  revealed  to  Him  by  the  act  of 

—  ij6  — 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FAITH 

God.  In  that  hour  he  was  put  into  new  relations  with 
God  without  reference  of  any  kind  to  his  standing  as 
a  circumcised  Hebrew,  or  a  trained  and  convinced 
Pharisee,  or  a  virtuous  man,  or  a  reHgious  zealot.  These 
things  had  exercised  no  influence  upon  his  new  Hfe 
of  conscious  union  with  God.  He  could  find  no  act 
of  his  which  had  any  place  or  relevance  in  this  new 
situation  except  his  act  of  faitha  But  he  could  also 
appeal  to  the  case  of  Peter  himself,  who  knew,  and 
none  better,  that  he  had  been  justified  not  "  by  the 
works  of  the  law,  but  through  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  " 
(Gal.  ii.  16).  Further,  he  could  appeal  to  the  fact  that 
the  Galatians  themselves,  who  were  being  so  easily 
deluded  by  "  a  different  gospel,"  had  themselves  "  re- 
ceived the  Spirit "  when  he  first  preached  Jesus  Christ 
to  them,  and  that  so  vividly  that  His  cross  seemed  to 
stand  before  their  eyes,  and  they  beheved  on  Him  (Gal. 
iii.  1,2).  And  still  further,  when  he  writes  to  the  Romans 
he  can  assure  them  that  he  does  not  depend  on  isolated  or 
purely  personal  phenomena  for  the  substance  of  his  gospel. 
He  has  been  preaching  now  for  many  years,  among  many 
races,  and  it  stands  proved  by  an  experience  too  wide, 
too  varied,  too  real,  too  glorious  and  godlike  to  admit  of 
doubt,  that  the  power  of  God  comes  upon  "  every  one 
that  beheveth,"  whatever  his  race  or  past  earthly  con- 
dition. 

(2)  His  Second  Defence  :    Abraham. — There  is   one 
line  of  historical  argument  which  Paul  felt  to  be  so 

powerful  that  he  elaborated  it  both   to  the  Romans 
12  —  177  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

(iv.  1-25)  and  the  Galatians  (iii.  5-29).  He  appeals 
to  the  case  of  Abraham,  the  father  of  the  Hebrew 
race,  of  whom  it  is  said  (Gen.  xv.  6)  that  he  "  beUeved 
God,  and  it  was  reckoned  unto  him  for  righteousness." 
It  is  not  said  that  Abraham  won  his  righteousness  by 
his  own  labours,  nor  that  he  received  the  payment  of 
a  debt  owing  from  the  Almighty  to  his  merits.  Nor 
again  could  it  be  said  that  the  righteousness  of  Abraham 
their  father  arose  from  his  perfect  observance  of  that 
law  on  whose  fulfilment  these  Jews  rested  all  their  hopes  ; 
for  the  law  came  in  long  after  his  day  and  has  no  bearing 
at  all  upon  his  rehgious  experience.  Even  the  rite  of 
circumcision  which  he  did  observe  was  instituted  after 
his  righteousness  before  God  had  already  been  estab- 
lished, and  after  the  great  promise,  in  which  all  their 
Jewish  hope  had  its  ultimate  historical  root,  had  been 
solemnly  made  by  God.  It  was  clear  then  that  their 
own  father  Abraham  entered  into  righteousness  cen- 
turies before  the  law  was  given,  and  as  an  uncircumcised 
man ;  and  the  Scripture  makes  it  abundantly  clear  that 
the  sole  condition  of  his  right  standing  with  God  was 
this  principle  of  faith,  for  whose  glory  he,  Paul,  was 
contending  against  these  Judaising   Christians. 

(3)  His  Third  Defence  :  the  Nature  of  Grace. — This 
triumphant  historical  appeal  was  not  felt  by  Paul  to  be 
the  full  statement  of  his  case.  He  also  deals  with  the 
inner  meaning  of  the  various  principles  under  discussion. 
There  are  two  fundamental  methods  of  the  religious  Ufe 

which  in  this  controversy  are  at  war  with  one  another ; 

-  i78  - 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FAITH 

the  one  is  the  righteousness  which  is  demanded  by  "  the 
law,"  the  other  is  the  righteousness  which  is  conferred  by 
the  grace  of  God.  He  proves  that  the  latter  is  no  dream, 
no  theory  of  what  might  be.  It  is  an  estabHshed  fact, 
a  way  of  dealing  with  man  which  God  has  now  put  into 
full  operation  in  Christ  Jesus.  There  are  human  beings 
who  now  consciously  possess  righteousness.  They  have 
been  justified,  that  is  forgiven  for  a  sinful  past  and  taken 
into  a  living  fellowship  with  Himself,  by  the  supreme 
and  all-holy  One.  The  number  of  these  is  multiplying 
continually  wherever  the  gospel  is  proclaimed.  No 
barriers  of  race  prejudice,  of  dark  iniquity,  of  barbarism 
or  ignorance  have  proved  insuperable.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  whole  history  of  legalism  cannot  produce  one 
conscience  to  which  it  has  given  the  righteousness  and 
peace  of  God.  Its  trophies  are  tortured  consciences, 
defeated  wills,  and  broken  hopes.  The  reason  for  this 
great  difference  lies  here,  that  by  fulfilment  of  the  law 
a  man  endeavours  to  merit  eternal  life,  to  make  the 
Almighty  his  debtor,  while  by  acceptance  of  grace  a  man 
assumes  his  true  place  in  the  moral  universe  as  one  who 
is  conscious  that  he  does  not  deserve  the  boon  of  Hfe 
eternal,  but  as  one  to  whom  it  has  been  granted  by  the 
free  and  immeasurable  and  inexphcable  mercy  of  God 
Himself.  If  the  latter  deals  with  man  as  man,  and  not 
with  one  man  as  a  Jew  and  another  man  as  a  Gentile, 
then  the  only  human  act  which  can  be  relevant  and 
reasonable  and  effectual  in  this  situation  is  the  act  of 
faith.  When  the  vision  of  the  divine  grace,  that  love 
—  179  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

which  is  clothed  with  pity,  that  holiness  which  shines 
through  the  tempering  atmosphere  of  mercy,  breaks  upon 
a  man's  soul,  his  effort  to  "  work"  is  paralysed,  merit 
becomes  as  distasteful  as  it  is  impossible,  and  he  casts 
himseK  in  the  great  deed  of  self-abandonment  upon 
a  Saviour,  a  Father,  a  God  whom  he  trusts  wholly 
and  for  ever. 


III.  The  Teaching  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 

While  it  was  the  Apostle  Paul  upon  whom  the  great 
task  was  laid  of  reveaHng  to  all  men  this  vital  view  of 
faith,  and  thus  establishing  before  all  eyes  the  universal 
character  of  the  Christian  religion,  it  was  given  to  another 
New  Testament  writer  to  celebrate  the  praise  of  faith  in 
another  way.  The  eleventh  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  is  a  kind  of  Epic  of  Faith.  Its  very  style  assumes 
a  swing,  a  rhythm,  a  majesty  which  only  great  moments 
in  the  history  of  human  thought  can  clothe  themselves 
withal. 

1.  The  Perplexity  of  Hebrew  Christians. — The  letter 

was  apparently  addressed  to  Hebrew  Christians,  who 

were  passing  through  a  great  trial.     Outward  afflictions 

were  upon  them,  but  their  chief  trouble  was  inward. 

They  seem  to  have  come  to  that  natural  period  of  personal 

history  when,  the  first  fervours  of  faith,  the  first  joys 

of  the  Spirit  having  been  experienced,  they  faced  the 

commonplace  facts  of  their  social  environment.     The 

hunger  for  their  old  habits  came  back.     They  wondered 

—  i8o  •— 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FAITH 

whether  a  real  and  soHd  religion  could  exist  without 
temple  and  sacrifices,  without  priests  and  stately  cere- 
monials.    They  asked  themselves  whether  really  it  was 
intended  by  God  that  those  glorious  elements  of  the  life 
of  Israel  should  thus  vanish  and  leave  their  world  so 
bare  and  colourless  as  it  seemed  to  their  eyes.     In  earUer 
chapters  the  author  has  gone  over  the  great  Christian 
argument   with   unsurpassed    skill    of    exposition,   with 
calm  dignity  and  tender  sympathy.     But  when  he  has 
proved  that  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  surpasses  all 
the   highest   names   of   the   Old   Testament  revelation, 
angels,  Moses,  Joshua  ;  when  he  has  shown  the  meaning 
and  glory  of  the  High  Priesthood  of  Christ,  and  that 
before  its  grandeur  and  power  all  other  earthly  priest- 
hoods must  pass  away  ;  when  he  has  proved  that  the 
temple  sacrifices  were  but  poor  and  ineffective  symbols 
of    the    only    true    and    potent    sacrifice    which    Jesus 
made  in  His  own  blood,  and  which  He  presents  in 
heaven  for  all  men  for  ever,  he  seems  to  have  proved  too 
much.     "  He  not  only  leaves  us,"  his  first  readers  might 
well  say,  "  with  this  '  faith  '  as  our  only  earthly  security 
against  the  danger  of  perdition  (Heb.  x.  39), — and  it 
does  seem  so  thin — but  he  seems  to  abohsh  the  whole 
value  and  virtue  of  the  ancient  Scriptures.     If  prophet 
and  priest,  temple  and  sacrifice,  existed  only  until  Christ 
came,  it  looks  as  if  Old  Testament  history  was  all  husk 
and  no  kernel,  all  symbol  and  no  substance."     It  is  to 
this  feeling,  or  something  like  it,  that  the  great  argument 

of  chapter  xi.  to  chapter  xii.  2  is  addressed. 

—  i8i  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

2.  The  Definition  of  Faith. — The  first  of  its  three 
stages  is  very  brief,  but  of  vital  importance,  and  consists 
of  the  famous  definition  of  faith  :  "  Faith  is  assurance 
of  (or  the  giving  substance  to)  things  hoped  for,  a  con- 
viction (or  test)  of  things  not  seen."  Whatever  may  be 
the  best  Enghsh  terms  for  the  first  word  of  each  of  the 
defining  clauses,  the  meaning  of  the  whole  is  clear. 
Faith  is  our  attitude  towards  the  future  and  the  in- 
visible. When  we  act  in  relation  to  anything  which 
is  beyond  the  immediate  moment,  or  beyond  our  imme- 
diate sense  perceptions,  we  then  act  by  faith. 

3.  The  Abiding  Substance  of  the  Old  Testament. — This 
most  sound  and  helpful  definition  of  faith  is  then  applied 
to  the  Old  Testament  with  a  most  astonishing  result. 
It  results  that  the  real  substance  of  the  ancient  story, 
the  vital  and  essential  element  of  the  entire  religion  of 
the  Hebrews  on  its  human  side,  was  faith.  (1)  The  very 
foundation  of  all  reHgion  is  the  belief  in  God  as  the 
Creator  of  the  universe  (xi.  3),  and  the  life  of  rehgion 
consists  in  the  belief  that  God  is  in  active  relations 
with  men  (xi.  6).  (2)  But  the  history  of  Old  Testament 
enthusiasm  and  heroism  is  simply  the  revelation  of 
the  glorious  nature  and  commanding  power  and  con- 
tagious joy  of  faith.  All  these  men  and  women  achieved 
their  greatness  because  they  were  great  in  faith  :  whether 
it  was  Abraham  gazing  into  the  future,  or  Moses  into  the 
invisible ;  whether  it  was  Joseph  giving  commandment 
concerning  his  bones,  or  Rahab  sheltering  the  spies  of 

Jehovah,  they  acted  not  in  relation  to  the  visible  and 

—  182  — 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FAITH 

immediate  facts  before  them,  but  on  the  conviction 
that  God  holds  sway  over  the  days  that  are  to  come, 
and  rules  the  things  we  see  from  a  throne  to  which 
these  outer  eyes  are  bhnd.  The  thriUing  recital  of  the 
famihar  names  of  a  few,  and  the  heaped-up  tumulus  of 
the  sufferings  and  the  wrongs  and  the  tragic  deaths 
of  innumerable  unnamed  heroes  of  faith,  combine  to 
make  the  reader  feel  that  here  in  the  story  of  the  spirit 
of  man  we  have  the  substance  of  history.  Not  the  stones 
of  the  eternal  city,  nor  the  faint  echo  of  her  ancient 
language  and  customs  to-day  in  her  streets,  are  Kome 
for  us ;  but  the  patriotism  and  enterprise,  the  courage 
and  statesmanship,  of  her  ancient  citizens.  In  them  we 
touch  the  reahty  that  was  Rome.  So  this  writer  makes 
his  feUow  Hebrews  feel  as  they  look  back  upon  the  story 
of  Jerusalem,  of  Israel,  of  ritual  and  temple.  Not  these 
vanished  glories,  but  the  faith  of  their  fathers  in  God 
bound  one  generation  to  another  in  a  hfe  of  meaning, 
and  became  their  great  legacy  to  all  the  ages  of  mankind. 
4.  The  Supreme  Faith. — The  third  portion  of  the  argu- 
ment is  brief,  but  conclusive.  The  Old  Testament  heroes 
beheved  in  the  promise  of  God,  died  for  it,  died  without 
seeing  it  fulfilled.  This  was  not  faithlessness  towards  them 
on  the  part  of  God,  for  they  shall  most  certainly  be  made 
perfect ;  but  it  was  grace  to  us.  Not  one  of  them  shall 
lose  his  place  in  the  final  glory,  but  we  of  the  Christian 
era  shall  be  included.  For  our  faith  in  God,  if  we  are 
worthy  to  be  called  the  heirs  of  their  faith,  looks  upward 
and  onward  to  Jesus,  who  is  "  the  author  and  perfecter  of 

-  183  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

faith."  His  great  work,  nay,  He  the  worker,  must  be 
the  object  of  a  trust  which  all  the  host  of  faithful  souls 
in  the  past  will  watch,  as  an  encompassing  cloud  of 
sympathy,  and  which  Jesus  Himself  will  reward  from 
the  very  throne  of  God. 

IV.  General  Considerations. 

We  must  now  try,  though  very  swiftly,  to  survey 
this  matter,  this  deep  principle  of  faith,  that  we  may 
see  how  and  why  it  has  taken  this  pre-eminence  in  the 
final  religion,  and  what  may  be  its  relation  to  the  mis- 
sionary quahty  and  power  of  the  gospel. 

1.  The   Psychology   of   Faith. — We   must   begin   by 

asking  what  Faith  is,  as  one  of  the  functions  of  human 

nature.     For    here    there    is    much    misunderstanding. 

One  of  the  most  common  errors  is  to  speak  as  if  it  were 

a  distinctive  organ  of  the  soul,  and  one  which  may  or 

may  not  be  created  by  the  Spirit  of  God  in  individual 

cases.     Huxley  said  it  was  not  included  in  his  structure. 

David   Hume,   with   one   of  his   most   terrible   sneers, 

suggested  that  it  was  a  miracle  wrought  in  a  man  to 

enable  him  to  accept  the  miracles  of  the  Bible.     We 

have  already  seen  that  faith  is  described  best  as  a 

definite    attitude    assumed    towards    things    that    are 

invisible  and  future.     In  this  attitude  the  seK  is  active 

in  all  its  fundamental  powers  of  mind  and  heart  and 

will.     Each  of  these  elements  of  consciousness  is  necessary 

to  the  production  of  faith.     The  mind  must  apprehend 

—  184  — 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FAITH 

the  reality  and  place  of  the  object ;  the  heart,  with  all 
that  this  somewhat  popular  term  includes,  must  feel 
and  appreciate  its  meaning  and  value  for  self ;  the  will 
or  power  of  action  must  be  positively  exerted  to 
relate  the  self  with  the  object  so  apprehended  and  so 
appreciated.  If  I  see  a  certain  object  and  it  takes  its 
place  in  my  universe,  if  I  feel  its  worth  or  value,  if  I 
then  proceed  to  act  upon  its  reality  and  its  meaning,  I 
have  acted  in  faith.  Each  of  the  three  elements  must 
be  present  in  some  degree  if  my  faith  is  to  be  rational 
and  complete.  But  if  the  three  are  included  in  my 
conduct  nothing  else  is  needed  to  make  the  act  deserve 
the  name  of  an  act  of  faith. 

Of  course,  we  must  recognise  that  each  of  these 
elements  of  consciousness  has  richly  varied  forms,  and 
the  meaning  of  faith  itself  must  vary  accordingly.  To 
apprehend  the  reahty  and  uses  of  a  bridge  before  my 
eyes,  or  an  island  of  spices  in  the  orient,  or  a  human 
friend,  or  a  great  truth,  is  the  work  of  reason,  and  yet 
how  differently  she  operates  in  these  directions.  The 
very  feelings  of  the  heart  are  not  the  same  when  we 
contemplate  the  value,  the  relation  to  our  interests, 
of  these  different  objects.  Our  moral  sense,  our  aesthetic 
sympathy,  colour  that  response  of  our  inner  nature 
out  of  which  action  or  conduct  springs.  We  all  re- 
cognise objects  named  as  possessing  different  degrees 
of  importance  for  our  separate  lives.  What  may  be  all 
important   for   one   man   is   a    "dead  hypothesis,"   as 

Professor  James  has  it,   for  another  man.     So  again, 

-  185  - 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

the  movement  of  the  will,  the  form  of  action,  is  not 

the  same  in  these  different  cases.     My  conduct  in  using 

the  bridge  for  the  thousandth  time,  or  bupng  spices 

for  the  first  time,  or  leaning  on  the  judgment  of  my 

friend  in  a  great  personal  crisis,  or  regulating  life  upon 

an   ascertained   truth   in   morals    or   economics,   flows 

from  my  self-determination,  and   turns   my  preceding 

apprehension  and  appreciation  of  the  facts  into  a  living 

faith ;   but  in  each   case  the   decision  seems  different 

from  every  other.     Nevertheless  these  are  all  phases 

in  that  life  of  faith  which  is  our  whole  and  sole  life 

upon  earth. 

2.  The  Place  of  Faith  in  General  Experience. — This, 

then,  is  one  of  the  remarkable  and  happy  effects  of  the 

proclamation  of  the  law  of  faith  in  the  New  Testament. 

It  has  helped  to  reveal  to  us  the  essential  unity  and  the 

deeply  spiritual  nature  of  the  whole  of  man's  practical 

life.     Some  minds  still  tend  to  retain  the  word  "faith  " 

wholly  for  religious  uses.     They  practically  restrict  it 

to  the  relations  of  man  with  God.    We  have  seen  that 

this  must  be  viewed  as  psychologically  an  inaccurate 

account  of  the  nature  of  faith.     It  can  also  be  described 

as  a  distinct  detriment  to  our  view  of  the  meaning  of 

man's  general  experience,  and  of  its  relation  to  that  which 

is   specially   known  as   his   rehgious   life.     For  if   our 

analysis  is  correct  and  relevant,  it  follows  that  faith  is 

the  life-blood  of  our  whole  social  experience.     It  is  the 

inner  bond  connecting  interests  and  forms  of  conduct 

so  diverse  as  art,  science,  patriotism,  industry,  love,  and 

—  i86  — 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FAITH 

religion.  In  each  of  these  a  man  relates  himself  with 
some  object,  whose  reality  and  value  he  apprehends, 
and  towards  which  he  is  moved  by  the  deepest  impulse 
of  his  nature  to  act.  The  man  of  art,  for  whom  the  ideal 
of  the  beautiful,  or  the  man  of  science,  for  whom  truth 
is  almost  an  essential  of  existence,  is  not  deaHng  with 
a  mere  figment  of  the  imagination.  Powerless  as  his 
reason  may  be  to  explain  its  ultimate  nature  and  seat 
of  reality,  he  apprehends  it  as  a  most  real  as  well  as  a 
most  glorious  object  of  desire. 

The  man  who  is  absorbed  in  the  claims  of  patriotism 
may  well  be  puzzled  to  set  forth  in  precise  detail  a 
logical  defence  of  his  passion  and  sacrifice.  His  country, 
what  is  it  ?  What  makes  it  infinitely  more  precious  to 
him  than  all  other  countries  put  together  ?  There  are  fair 
valleys  and  grand  mountains  across  the  border.  There, 
too,  are  human  homes  with  all  the  sweet  charm  of  family 
love  and  the  deep  mystery  of  family  grief.  There,  too, 
are  government,  industry,  and  agriculture,  and  many 
noble  hearts  serve  the  cause  of  that  other  land  as  devot- 
edly and  purely  as  this  man  serves  his.  Who  shall 
attempt  to  explore  the  fountainheads  of  patriotism  ? 
They  lie  far  up  in  the  regions  where  all  our  ideals  spring. 
It  is  mere  cloudland  if  we  attempt  to  guide  ourselves  in 
it  by  our  logical  faculty.  Our  thinking  becomes  misty 
and  unrelated  to  the  valleys  and  fields  of  life.  But 
from  that  region  of  reason  and  the  spirit  of  man  all  the 
streams  run  down  which  become  his  practical  ideas, 

his  purest    and  deepest  passions,  his  mighty  motives 
-  187  - 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

and  blood  red  devotions  of  soul.  All  which  just  means 
that  in  the  higher  levels  man  walks  and  runs,  loves  and 
toils,  by  faith.  Some  object  is  before  his  soul's  vision 
whose  outlines  mingle  with  the  skies.  It  has  power  over 
his  affection,  his  conscience,  his  yearning  for  the  true, 
the  beautiful,  the  good,  and  it  rouses  him  to  lifelong 
and  most  costly  tasks.  It  is  the  call  of  the  infinite, 
to  which  the  answer  of  man  can  never  be  aught  but  the 
rejection  or  the  acceptance  of  the  law  of  faith. 

To  put  the  matter  in  another  way,  it  may  be  said 
that  all  society  is  founded  on  faith.  This  becomes 
clearer  as  civilization  becomes  more  complex,  and  the 
mutual  interactions  of  men  more  intricate,  more  potent 
in  their  influence.  Men  depend  on  one  another  for 
kinds  of  conduct  which  cannot  be  regulated  by  law  or 
controlled  by  courts  of  justice.  Standards  of  honour  are 
erected  by  common  consent  which  become  powerful 
over  the  selfishness  and  greed  and  meanness  of  individual 
members  of  society.  These  often  exercise  a  sway  far 
beyond  that  of  formal  legislation.  But  it  is  evident 
that  their  fulfilment  is  secured  by  faith.  In  all  business 
affairs  men  have  to  lean  on  one  another  for  promptitude 
and  honesty.  In  the  deeper  relations  of  family  and 
friendship  faith  is  the  very  soul  of  reality.  Thus  we  can 
have  no  true  love,  no  frank  intercourse,  no  purity  of 
motive,  and  no  sincere  sacrifice  except  as  we  are  bound 
together  by  this  golden  chain  of  personal  trust.  The 
very  fact  that  we  realise  this  more  openly  and  intelli- 
gently than  was  possible  in  past  ages  is  proof  that  the 

—  i88  — 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FAITH 

social  order  is  becoming  more  truly  ethical,  that  its 
most  sacred  and  sohd  boons  are  known  and  confessed 
to  be  the  fruit  of  that  free  movement  of  conscience  and 
heart  which  is  the  very  atmosphere  of  the  great  principle 
of  faith. 

3.  Faith  in  the  Religious  History  of  Man. — The  sig- 
nificance of  faith  was  not  known,  and  its  deHberate 
cultivation  was  not  possible,  until  the  Christian  religion 
had  begun  to  do  its  sublime  work  upon  human  nature. 
But  when  we  ponder  its  place  and  power  in  relation  to 
the  gospel,  we  begin  to  realise  that  it  has  very  deep 
connections  with  the  deepest  foundation  of  our  being. 
All  who  believe  in  the  living  God  hold  that  the  universe 
depends  wholly  upon  His  will  and  flows  from  His  pur- 
pose. It  derives  its  being  and  meaning  from  Him, — the 
dead  things  of  the  inorganic  universe  no  less  than  the 
thrilling  spirits  before  His  throne.  This  dependence  is,  of 
course,  unconscious  among  all  forms  of  existence  that  are 
unconscious  and  unrational.  It  may  be  that  it  begins  to 
reveal  itself  to  consciousness,  blindly  and  in  dull  fashion, 
when  we  reach  animals  that  are  capable  of  fear,  and  flee 
to  the  shelter  of  any  object  that  seems  to  promise  dehver- 
ance  from  danger.  But  in  man  it  breaks  out  into  the 
daylight  of  a  rational  will.  He  can  grasp  this  universal 
fact  of  creaturely  dependence  on  God,  and  make  it  the 
guide  of  conduct  and  the  hope  of  his  heart.  It  follows 
that  all  religions  do  found  themselves  even  unwittingly 
upon  faith.    However  crude  and  superstitious  they  seem 

to  us,  they  express  for  their  devotees  this  sense  of  depend- 

—  189  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

ence  for  definite  and  supreme  blessings  upon  that  Power 

which  is  over  all. 

This  is  one  of  the  facts  upon  which  the  wise  missionary 

is  careful  to  seize  as  a  guide  to  him  in  his  delivery  of  the 

Christian  message.     Perhaps  it  may  not  be  rash  to  say 

that  here    many  minds    find    a  more    soHd  and  more 

Christian   basis   for   cherishing   what   Tennyson   called 

*'  the  larger  hope,"  than  in  speculations  about  future 

probation  and  such  uncertain  matters.     For  the  faith 

of  the  nations  is  a  real  thing  ;    and  if  corruption  has 

invaded  their  religions,  and  gross  darkness  their  social 

practices,  we  must  yet  recognise  that  in  none  has  faith 

been     utterly     destroyed.       Even     among     degraded 

savage  tribes  the  missionary  is  very  apt  to  find  some 

circle  of  men  whose  minds  revolt  at  the  worst  forms  of 

shame,  in  whose  hearts  there  is  faith  in  a  better  order, 

and  who  have  a  dim  feeling  that  the  Power  over  all 

powers  is  on  the  side  of  that  higher  ideal.     If  we  are 

permitted  to  see  faith  in  Rahab,  how  much  more  in  the 

multitudes  of  men  and  women  of  nobler  mind  and  purer 

life  than  she,  who  have  kept  the  lamp  of  trust  burning 

in  the  darkest  days  of  human  history.     Even  the  smoking 

flax  He  shall  not  quench. 

It  is  evident  that  in  the  times  of  his  ignorance  man 

did  not  know  the  nature  and  range  of  his  needs,  and 

therefore  could  not  exercise  the  full  powers  of  his  faith 

in  God.     Even  when  he  knew  that  he  depended  on  God 

for  life  and  breath  and  all  things  earthly,  he  did  not 

know  that  God  must  supply  all  the  demands  of  his 

—  190  — 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FAITH 

moral  nature  and  situation,  nor,  indeed,  what  those 
demands  were.  When  he  began  to  reaHse  this  under  the 
spur  of  the  law  and  the  lash  of  prophetic  accusations,  he 
still  had  to  learn  that  God  both  can  and  will  deal  with  his 
sin,  not  to  destroy  but  to  deliver  him  from  its  disgrace 
and  its  disaster.  The  great  and  final  revelation  came 
when  God  appeared  as  the  forgiver  and  remover  of  sin, 
as  the  Father  seeking  fellowship  with  his  sons  far- 
wandered  and  forespent.  The  supreme  act  of  faith,  the 
very  crown  and  glory  of  that  marvellous  principle  of  all 
personal  life,  is,  to  depend  on  God  for  His  mercy  towards 
a  sinful  and  penitent  soul.  That,  apart  from  Christ  and 
His  Cross,  is  the  one  incredible  thing  which  no  other 
reHgion  had  discovered,  nor  its  founders  promised,  before 
Him.  But,  once  disclosed  in  the  power  of  the  Saviour, 
once  grasped,  expounded,  and  defended  by  His  Apostles, 
it  took  its  place  as  the  cHmax  of  the  rehgious  development 
of  man,  as  the  one,  universal,  and  indispensable  law 
which  must  henceforth  govern  the  relations  of  man  and 
God,  and  saturate  all  human  experience  with  its  pure 
and  heavenly  nature.  God  is  the  God  of  mercy,  and  man 
can  have  no  duty,  no  privilege,  no  object  of  rational 
action,  no  motive  of  purity,  till  he  meets  that  mercy  with 
trust.  This  is  the  essence  and  fountain  of  all  further 
history  for  the  individual  and  the  race. 

4.  Faith  and  Creeds. — We  have  seen  that  the  act 
of  faith  implies  always  a  movement  of  the  mind.  An 
object  must  be  apprehended  by  me  as  a  reahty,  and  it 

must  be  set  there  in  its  own  place  in  my  universe,  before 

—  191  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

I  can  feel  its  value  and  deal  with  it.  That  is  to  say, 
there  is  an  intellectual  element  in  faith.  Wheresoever 
it  is  created  our  reason  is  at  work  there,  building  or 
rebuilding  our  total  view  of  things.  It  is  from  this 
intellectual  necessity  of  our  life  that  all  systematic 
thought  has  grown,  all  philosophies,  all  doctrines,  all 
creeds,  all  theologies.  They  are  the  inevitable,  healthful, 
and  constant  offspring  of  faith.  The  word  "  creed  " 
is  used  to  cover  a  great  variety  of  forms  under  which 
the  effort  of  Christian  leaders  to  summarise  Christian 
truth  has  worked.  Originally  it  means  just  "  I  believe  " 
(Latin,  credo),  and  the  first  creed  was  simply  an  expression 
of  personal  trust  with  a  statement  of  the  object  on 
which  the  trust  was  directed  (see  Apostles'  Creed).  But 
the  widening  life  and  influence  of  the  Church,  and  the 
progressive  efforts  made  to  set  forth  the  whole  body  of 
Christian  truth  in  a  formal  and  systematic  manner, 
led  to  the  construction  of  creeds  and  confessions  from 
which  the  personal  act  was  gradually  eliminated  and 
in  which  we  find  only  an  impersonal  statement  of 
objective  truth.  This  was  a  natural  and  even  necessary 
outcome  of  the  whole  facts. 

To  prevent  the  Church  from  thinking,  which  those 
would  do  who  deny  doctrine  and  theology  and  sneer 
generally  at  the  creeds,  would  be  to  crush  that  rational 
element  of  faith  which  we  have  seen  to  be  vital.  Indeed, 
already,  where  we  have  neglect  of  doctrine  and  dispar- 
agement of  the  study  of  Christian  truth  in  a  systematic 

manner,  we  have  as  a  result,  merely  sentimental  forms 

—  192  — 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FAITH 

of  enthusiasm  which  lose  their  grip  on  the  ordered  Hfe 
of  man,  and  even  superstition  of  the  grossest  kinds, 
with  a  bUnd  readiness  for  the  acceptance  of  fad  rehgions, 
both  nebulous  and  futile. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  observed  that  faith 
cannot  be  forced.  It  cannot  possibly  live  as  real  faith 
except  in  the  atmosphere  of  freedom.  The  authority 
of  the  creeds  and  of  the  Church  must  be  used  solely 
as  a  moral  authority,  appealing  to  the  will  through 
the  conscience  of  each  man,  with  his  affections  and  the 
movements  of  his  mind.  To  make  mere  belief  a  law 
which  men  can  administer,  to  define  doctrines  of  the 
Christian  faith  as  if  they  were  enactments  enforcible 
at  a  human  judgment  bar,  is  not  to  preserve  or  nourish 
but  to  dishonour  and  desolate  the  power  of  a  living 
faith.  When  force  has  been  used  in  support  of  creeds, 
the  offspring  has  not  been  the  glorious  and  radiant 
consciousness  of  the  sons  of  God,  the  dignity  of  con- 
scious choice,  the  energy  of  personal  decision,  but  a 
society  of  dull  worldlings  interspersed  with  faces  of 
terror.  Faith  must  rear  her  creeds  if  she  would  be 
reasonable,  but  faith  must  be  free  from  an  attempted 
physical  enforcement  if  she  would  live  at  all. 

5.  Faith  and  Mysticism. — It  has  been  objected 
to  this  whole  view  of  faith  that  it  seems  to  ignore 
what  is  called  the  mystical  element,  which  we  find  so 
powerful  in  the  language  of  the  Apostle  Paul.  But  this 
objection  is  surely  due  to  a  misunderstanding  of  the 
seat  of  mysticism  in  Pauline  thought.  As  we  have 
13  —  193  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

seen  in  another  connection,  the  mystic  element  in 
religion  arises  from  the  sense  of  direct  contact  between 
the  individual  soul  and  eternal  realities.  That  con- 
tact is  said  to  be  realised  in  various  ways,  but  in  the 
Christian  gospel  it  is  given  in  and  through  the  appre- 
hension that  the  Risen  Christ,  and  God  through  Him, 
is  presented  to  us  as,  so  to  speak,  an  object,  a  Person 
to  be  dealt  with  in  conscience  and  heart.  When  that 
is  intensely  realised,  the  soul  is  brought  consciously 
and  powerfully  under  the  influence  of  facts,  all  of  which 
run  up,  as  it  were,  in  living  connections  between  itself 
and  the  infinitude  of  God.  It  is  here,  in  the  opening 
out  before  our  eyes  of  the  heart  of  mercy,  surely  the 
most  mystical  fact  in  the  universe ;  here  in  the  intense 
reality  of  the  divine  righteousness  and  the  divine  love 
poured  out  upon  the  earth  through  the  breaking  of  the 
heart  of  Jesus  on  the  Cross  ;  here  in  the  sense  of  sin  which 
the  quickening  presence  of  God  awakes,  and  which  refuses 
to  count  itself  limited  or  measurable  or  explainable ; 
here  in  the  sound  of  that  home-call  of  the  soul  when  it 
reahses  its  affinity  with  God,  and  is  moved  to  its  depths 
as  by  the  voice  of  its  own  inmost  being  crying  for  hfe, 
it  is  here  that  true  Christian  mysticism  has  its  healthy 
life.     And  here  is  the  birthplace  and  nurture  of  faith. 

5.  The  Principle  of  Faith  as  universal. — We  must 
conclude  with  another  glance  at  the  fact  that  the  religion 
which  has  made  the  act  of  faith  the  fundamental  mode 
of  man's  life  towards  God  has  there  one  more  witness 
to  its  finaUty  and  its  universality.    For  no  simpler  and 

—  194  — 


THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  FAITH 

no  deeper  connection  can  ever  be  established  in  a  world 
of  sin  between  guilty  men  and  a  loving  but  merciful 
God  than  lies  in  this  attitude  which  we  call  trust. 
It  is  an  act  or  attitude  so  centrally  founded  in 
human  nature  that  all  men  of  all  races,  and  all  forms 
and  degrees  of  intelUgence  and  civiHsation,  are  capable 
of  it.  None  who  can  have  the  sense  of  sin  or  conceive 
of  God,  none  whose  eyes  can  be  lifted  beyond  the 
horizons  of  this  life,  none  whose  hearts  can  be  reached 
by  the  notes  of  love,  are  beyond  the  range  of  this  message. 
"It  is  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation  to  every  one 
that  belie veth." 


—  195  — 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  VITAL  MEANING  OF  THE  CHURCH  AND 
THE  BIBLE 

TTTE  have  seen  that  the  Christian  rehgion  never 
^  ^  existed  as  a  mere  abstract  plan  of  salvation  or 
programme  of  conduct.  When  the  redemption  of  man 
and  the  revelation  of  God  though  Christ  were  accom- 
plished facts,  they  had  already  taken  their  place  in 
human  experience.  They  had  even  then  become  the 
life  of  a  community,  the  basis  of  its  distinctive  exist- 
ence, and  the  driving  power  of  its  history.  Christianity 
was  not  like  a  philosophy,  a  kind  of  formless  spirit 
which  may  spread  like  an  atmosphere  through  a  people's 
life  and  yet  fail  to  produce  a  new  organism  of  its  own. 
Nor  was  it  a  merely  individualistic  interest.  Although 
it  did  in  a  sense  discover  the  human  individual  as  no 
rehgion  and  no  philosophy  had  ever  seen  him,  in  the 
infinite  meaning  and  value  of  each  soul  for  God  and 
for  itself,  it  did  not  leave  each  man  "  burning  upward 
to  his  point  of  bliss  "  in  isolation.  On  the  contrary, 
its  individual  behevers  were  of  infinite  value  for  each 
other  also,  and  they  could  only  realise  the  full  reality  of 

their  new  life  in  social  as  well  as  in  secret  experience. 

—  196  — 


THE  VITAL  MEANING  OF  CHURCH  AND  BIBLE 

The  glory  of  a  redeemed  humanity  in  conscious  union 
with  God  was  brought  into  view  after  such  a  manner 
that  each  beheld  the  majesty  of  his  brother  Christian, 
and  found  it  as  impossible  to  ignore  that  brother  as  it 
was  to  ignore  himself. 

The  general  social  nature  of  the  human  race  appears 
in  and  rests  on  such  fundamental  facts  as  (a)  the  law 
of  reproduction,  (b)  the  necessity  for  co-operation 
aUke  in  the  nurture  of  children  and  in  the  communal 
conquest  and  uses  of  nature,  and  (c)  the  possibility 
of  progress  in  the  pursuit  of  moral  and  spiritual  ideals, 
including  the  practice  of  reHgion,  only  through  the 
co-operation  of  many  individuals.  Each  and  all  of 
these  vital  elements  of  society  were  recognised  and  taken 
up,  in  changed  forms,  into  the  hfe  of  Christianity. 
From  the  first  the  teaching  of  Jesus  gave  prominence  to 
the  idea  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  which  is  a  definitely 
social  conception,  and  which  by  natural  steps  passed 
over  into  that  of  the  fiving  and  witnessing  Church.  It 
is  true  that,  to  begin  with,  they  were  only  a  formless 
group  of  men  and  women,  with  only  the  rudiments  of 
organisation,  who  composed  the  Christian  community. 
But  they  speedily  began  to  exercise  the  functions  of  a 
living  organism.  The  principle  of  reproduction  was  re- 
cognised and  put  into  operation  as  they  began  to  bear 
witness  in  the  very  presence  of  utterly  hostile  groups 
of  men  to  the  nature,  origin,  and  power  of  the  Hfe  which 
bound  them  together.  The  principle  of  co-operation 
in  development  of  character,  in  enrichment  of  thought 

—  197  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

and  experience,  was  recognised  as  they  met  together 
and  apart  from  the  world  for  deeper  instruction  in 
Christian  truth,  and  for  partaking  of  the  Sacraments. 
It  was  out  of  these  modes  of  action,  by  that  inchoate 
community  which  waited  in  Jerusalem  until  Pentecost, 
that  the  Christian  Church  and  the  Bible  gradually  took 
definite  shape,  and  entered  upon  their  permanent  and 
ever-widening  influence  in  the  world.  We  must  con- 
sider each  of  these  in  turn. 


I.  The  Church  of  Christ 

We  have  already  seen  that  the  Church  of  Christ  is 
the  name  given  to  the  community  of  believers  in  Him. 
They  were  not  merely  united  by  possessing  the  same 
convictions  about  God  and  man,  the  way  of  salvation 
and  the  hope  of  eternal  life.  Many  temporary  associa- 
tions of  men  have  been  formed  by  interest  in  the  same 
studies,  or  in  the  same  artistic  pursuits,  or  in  the  same 
theories  of  the  meaning  of  life.  But  in  such  groups 
there  is  something  lacking  of  which  the  Church  has 
been  conscious  from  the  very  beginning, — that  is,  its 
inward,  living  union  with  God  in  Christ,  its  inhabita- 
tion by  the  Spirit  of  life.  It  has  never  believed 
itself  to  be  merely  an  earthly  association  of  human 
beings,  but  a  spiritual  union  of  those  who  are  united 
with  Christ,  or  in  other  words  an  organism  of  which 
He  is  the  life,  a  body  of  which  He  is  the  Head. 

1.  The  Outward  Form, — At  Pentecost   the  Church 
—  198  — 


THE  VITAL  MEANING  OF  CHURCH  AND  BIBLE 

seems  to  have  been,  as  we  have  said,  a  formless 
mass,  with  only  the  rudiments  of  organisation.  One 
distinction  did  exist  between  those  who  were  called 
Apostles  and  all  other  believers  in  Jesus  Christ,  and 
a  function  of  pecuHar  importance  was  recognised  as 
belonging  to  the  former  class  in  the  new  economy. 
That  function  arose  naturally  and  inevitably  from  the 
fact  that  they  had  been  chosen  by  Jesus  to  form  an 
inner  circle  of  disciples,  whom  He  taught  and  influ- 
enced more  continuously  and  deeply  than  any  others, 
and  by  the  further  fact  that  they  were  witnesses  of 
His  resurrection.  They  were  by  these  circumstances 
constituted  as  the  leaders  of  the  new  community. 

For  a  time  there  seems  to  have  been  no  idea  of 
imposing  any  definite  polity  upon  the  Christians. 
Rather  does  organisation  seem  to  have  arisen,  as  it 
does  wherever  hfe  is  present,  partly  from  the  action 
of  the  environment  and  partly  from  the  felt  needs  of 
the  living  thing  itself.  The  appointment  of  seven 
men  for  a  special  work,  which  is  described  in  Acts  vi., 
is  a  clear  illustration  and  proof  of  this  process.  Every 
step  in  the  development  of  a  polity  in  the  ApostoHc 
Church,  so  far  as  it  can  be  traced,  is  of  the  same  kind. 
The  fundamental  needs  were  such  as  teaching,  evan- 
gelism, care  and  disbursement  of  money  for  the  poor, 
oversight  of  the  local  community  in  each  city  where 
a  church  was  formed.  Modern  historical  scholarship 
has  made  it  abundantly  clear  that  these  offices  were 
variously  conceived  and  named,  and  appointments  to 
—  199  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

them  were  variously  made  in  different  countries.  There 
was  no  uniformity,  no  observance  of  a  fixed  programme. 
Everywhere  there  was  a  keen  appreciation  of  the  prac- 
tical demands  of  the  place  and  the  hour,  and  an  inner 
sensitive  and  assured  dependence  upon  the  guidance 
of  the  Spirit  of  God.  Hence  it  is  that  we  have  such 
difficulty  in  setting  forth  any  general  outward  organi- 
sation of  the  Church,  either  in  apostolic  times  or  for 
several  centuries  afterwards  ;  and  hence  it  is  that  all 
the  leading  forms  of  Church  polity  which  obtain  in  the 
Christian  world  to-day  are  able  to  find  some  justification 
for  themselves  in  the  principles  and  practice  of  the  New 
Testament  Churches.  Nowhere  do  these  statements 
appear  to  be  more  fully  confirmed  than  by  the  three 
Epistles,  known  as  "  Pastoral  Epistles,"  to  Timothy 
and  Titus.  There  Paul  deals  in  a  special  way  with 
special  groups  of  churches,  and  in  describing  the  duty 
of  the  two  younger  men,  whom  he  is  sending  on  their 
unusual  errands,  discusses  the  basis  and  meaning  of 
the  offices  with  which  they  are  to  deal.  But  the  dis- 
cussion has  almost  nothing  to  do  with  mere  matters 
of  procedure  or  form.  It  is  concerned  only  with 
the  spiritual  and  moral  meaning  of  the  work  to  be 
done,  and  with  the  spiritual  and  moral  equipment 
which  they  must  possess  who  would  undertake  the 
work. 

This  is  not  the  place  for  a  discussion  of  controversial 
topics  regarding  the  rival  forms  of  Church  polity.     But 

two  things  may  be  said  on  which  there  will  nowadays 

—  200  — 


THE  VITAL  MEANING  OF  CHURCH  AND  BIBLE 

be  a  very  wide  agreement  among  leaders  of  different 
sections  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 

(1)  In  the  first  place,  practically  all  sections  do  make 
provision  for  the  three  or  four  fundamental  matters 
without  which  the  Church  can  hope  neither  to  be  fully 
nourished  in  its  own  faith  and  power,  nor  to  extend 
the  blessings  of  its  life  to  others.  It  must  make  due 
provision  for  missionary  work  or  evangelism,  for  con 
tinuous  instruction  and  teaching  of  its  members,  for 
pastoral  oversight  of  its  spiritual  and  temporal  affairs 
and  its  works  of  charity  and  mercy,  and  for  the  due 
observance  of  its  sacraments  and  other  sacred  ordin- 
ances. Failure  or  laxity  in  any  of  these  matters  always 
leads  to  loss  of  energy  and  influence. 

(2)  In  the  second  place,  because  the  Church  is  not  a 
mere  association  of  individuals  for  a  partial  and  evan- 
escent purpose,  but  rather  a  living  organism,  "  the  body 
of  Christ,"  the  true  seat  of  its  continuity  must  be  sought 
in  the  continuous  relation  of  all  believers  to  its  Lord 
and  Hfe,  Jesus  Christ.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  every  body 
of  Christian  beHevers  throughout  the  world  to-day  can 
trace  its  history  back  through  a  communal  life,  and 
through  all  the  changes  of  the  centuries,  to  the  witness 
of  the  Apostles.  If  we  keep  our  eye  upon  that  indubit- 
able statement,  we  shall  better  understand  the  meaning 
of  all  divergences  in  outward  organisation,  and  of  all 
changes  in  the  doctrine  concerning  the  Church  which 
have  inevitably  accompanied  those  divergences.  This 
does  not  imply  that  questions  of  Church  government 

—   20I    —  1 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

are  not  important.  But  it  does  mean  that  they  must 
be  studied  in  the  Ught  of  their  environment,  as  well 
through  the  influence  of  the  whole  circumstances  which 
gave  them  birth  as  through  the  partial  or  controversial 
explanations  given  of  them  by  their  respective  founders 
and  followers. 

These  observations  are  of  pecuUar  importance  for 
those  who  carry  the  gospel  into  mission  fields,  and  find 
themselves  under  the  solemn  and  yet  inspiring  responsi- 
bihty  of  guiding  young  Christian  communities  in  building 
up  the  organised  forms  of  Church  fife  and  work.  Few 
intelligent  persons  beheve  that  anywhere  the  ideal 
organisation  is  to  be  found  either  to-day  or  in  any 
previous  generation.  Yet  every  intelhgent  leader  of 
Church  life  must  often  dream  of  that  form  through 
which  the  Spirit  of  Christ  would  wield  its  finest  and  most 
potent  influence  upon  the  whole  moral  and  spiritual 
life  of  man.  Somewhere  even  to-day  there  must  be 
communions  which  approach  more  nearly  to  that  ideal, 
and  some  which  are  further  off.  It  can  only  be  through 
the  utmost  mutual  charity,  through  deep  and  faithful 
search  for  the  signs  of  His  presence  in  the  character 
and  power  of  His  disciples,  through  patient  and  loving 
intercourse  between  those  whom  birth  and  training 
as  well  as  personal  study  and  conviction  have  placed 
in  different  groups,  that  the  paths  will  open  which 
lead  from  various  quarters  of  the  ecclesiastical  world 
to  the  centre  where  His  throne  is  set,  and  from 
which  He,  with  His  royal  patience  and  divine  wisdom, 

—    202    — 


THE  VITAL  MEANING  OF  CHURCH  AND  BIBLE 

most    firmly  rules  and   most  forgivingly  guides    them 
all. 

2.  If  we  assume  that  the  Church  of  Christ  even  in  its 
broken  parts  and  in  its  unworthiness,  which  all  Christians 
continually  and  humbly  confess,  is  the  actual  organism 
through  which  the  Spirit  of  God  is  directing  the  history 
of  man,  something  must  be  said  of  its  place  in  the  world. 

(1)  First,  we  must  mark  its  inter-racial  or  universal 
nature.  Recent  historians  have  been  emphasising  the 
fact  that  the  early  Christians  felt  themselves  very 
vividly  to  be  a  new  race.  They  found  themselves 
united  in  the  circle  of  Christian  behevers  with  people 
of  all  kinds  from  all  quarters  of  the  known  world.  Bar- 
barians, Scythians,  bondmen,  freemen,  men  and  women, 
cultured  philosophers  and  unlettered  peasants,  mer- 
chants and  soldiers,  they  were  united  in  a  new  kind  of 
community  by  the  mighty  consciousness  of  a  new  life. 
That  life  was  so  real,  so  glorious,  so  rich  in  meaning 
and  in  joy  that  it  tended  powerfully  to  obliterate  racial 
distinctions  which  otherwise  seemed  irreducible,  and  to 
remove  social  barriers  to  intimacy  of  trust  and  love 
and  mutual  service  which  previously  no  man  dreamed 
of  surmounting.  Even  the  "  middle  wall  of  partition  " 
between  Jew  and  Gentile  had  been  broken  down  by  the 
power  of  Christ,  and  after  that  all  rivers  of  human 
experience  seemed  to  flow  together. 

(2)  The   Church   felt   itself   to   occupy   through   its 

whole  membership  a  position  which  had  been  confined 

to  a  select  claies,  namely,  that  of  a  priesthood.     Amid 
—  203  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

all  differences  of  interpretation  which  the  various  peoples 
and  religions  placed  upon  the  power  of  their  priests  two 
things  were  held  in  common.  The  priests  were  supposed 
to  have  special  access  to  the  presence  of  God,  or  special 
influence  among  superhuman  forces,  and  special  auth- 
ority to  stand  before  the  people  in  His  name.  This  double 
function  was  transferred  to  the  entire  body  of  Christian 
believers.  They  all  had  an  equal  right  to  enter  into  the 
holy  place  of  actual  and  personal  communion  with  God  ; 
and  they  had  the  solemn  and  inspiring  burden  of  living 
among  men  as  representatives  of  His  will  and  spirit. 
This  mystical  view  of  the  nature  and  meaning  of  the 
Church  has  never  been  wholly  lost,  although  there 
have  been  times  when  it  seemed  to  be  submerged  by  a 
return  to  non-Christian  views  of  priesthood.  It  has 
always  had  its  place  in  the  great  acts  of  public  worship, 
in  the  constant  practice  of  intercessory  prayer  by  all 
true  beHevers,  and  in  the  sense  of  responsibility  for  the 
propagation  of  the  gospel  by  private  individuals  as  well 
as  by  those  ordained  to  preach.  It  is  always  most 
clearly  held  when  the  Church  has  become  openly  engaged 
in  missionary  work,  or  where  beHevers  have  found 
themselves  surrounded  by  a  hostile  as  well  as  a  sinful 
and  suJBfering  world.  It  is  felt,  strange  to  say,  with 
very  great  depth  at  opposite  extremes  of  ecclesiastical 
organisation  and  practice.  Those  who  habitually  employ 
elaborate  and  symbolical  forms  of  worship, — if  they 
have,  as  their  teachers  and  guides,  earnest  men  who 

are  filled  with  the  zeal  of  the  gospel,  and  are  able  to 

—  204  — 


THE  VITAL  MEANING  OF  CHURCH  AND  BIBLE 

keep  elaboration  from  crushing  the  imagination  and 
symbolism  from  starving  the  sense  of  immediate  contact 
with  God, — do  often  cherish  the  priesthood  of  the  whole 
Church,  and  carry  on  its  intercessory  task  with  singular 
devotion.  On  the  other  hand,  those  also  who  practise 
the  simplest  forms  of  worship,  and  meet  together  in 
humble  and  obscure  places,  often  possess  the  most 
exalted  and  radiant  convictions  about  their  responsi- 
biUty  for  the  spread  of  the  gospel ;  and  they  too,  alike 
in  sacrificial  lives,  in  constant  prayer,  and  in  true  realisa- 
tion of  the  presence  of  Christ  in  their  midst,  exercise  a 
priesthood  stripped  of  outward  adorning,  which  has  a 
dignity  and  beauty  and  power  worthy  of  Him  who 
sacrificed  for  all  men  on  Calvary,  and  intercedes  for  all 
men  at  the  throne  of  God. 

Men  differ  as  to  what  may  be  considered  the 
most  poetical  thing  in  the  world.  One  says  it  is  an 
island  ;  another  says  it  is  a  road  leading  the  traveller 
through  forest  and  field,  over  hill  and  valley,  always 
alluring  and  always  revealing  ;  another  thinks  it  is  a 
child  in  whose  face  the  glory  of  another  world  yet  shines, 
and  whose  eyes  are  full  of  wonder  as  they  gaze  on  the 
confusing  lights  and  shadows  of  this  world.  Perhaps 
the  most  thoroughly  poetical  fact  in  history  is  the 
Church  of  Christ.  There  the  consciousness  of  the 
Divine  and  human  mingles  with  the  organised  life  of 
humanity.  There  we  have  in  an  intensified  form  the 
struggle  of  right  with  wrong,  of  mortal  fear  with  im- 
mortal hope,  of  faith  which  lays  hold  of  the  very  heart 
—  205  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

of  God  with  guilt  which  shrinks  from  the  name  of  the 
holy  Judge,  of  pure  love  caught  from  the  fire  of  divine 
mercy  fighting  with  the  fiercer  passion  of  self-will.  Over 
the  whole  course  of  its  varied  history  during  nineteen 
centuries  the  great  warfare  has  been  waged.  The  sordid 
and  the  spiritual,  the  earthly  and  the  heavenly,  the 
selfish  and  the  sacrificial,  are  always  at  work  in  its  mem- 
bership, and  most  intensely  in  the  hearts  of  its  noblest 
leaders.  Sometimes  the  one  set  of  forces,  sometimes 
the  other,  have  seemed  to  reign  supreme.  From  the 
first  its  mystic  beauty  was  felt,  and  men  searched  for 
the  most  pure  and  holy  symbols  to  describe  it,  such  as 
"  the  body  of  Christ,"  "  the  Bride  of  the  Heavenly 
Bridegroom,"  "  the  family  of  God,"  "  the  city,"  "  the 
people  of  God,"  "the  flock  of  the  Shepherd,"  "the 
soldiery  of  the  Divine  Captain,"  the  temple  whose 
stones  are  living  souls.  To-day  it  lives,  having  seen 
empires  come  and  go,  and  legions  of  enemies  rise  in 
fierce  hatred  only  to  fall  away  again  before  its  strange 
and  unearthly  persistence.  And  this  community,  this 
human  organism,  with  the  Risen  Christ  as  its  animating 
principle  and  source  of  its  exhaustless  energy,  is  spread- 
ing over  whole  races  of  man  more  quickly  and  rapidly 
than  ever.  The  mighty  drama  between  human  and  divine 
wills  is  being  played  out  before  our  own  eyes  and 
through  our  own  hearts.  None  is  touched  by  or  touches 
this  body  but  is  put  into  immediate  connection  with 
values  and  forces  which  are  infinite,  eternal,  and  divine. 

It  is  the  poetry  of  human  history,  because  it  hfts  each 
—  206  — 


THE  VITAL  MEANING  OF  CHURCH  AND  BIBLE 

human  soul  through  imagination,  intuition,  and  faith, 
through  hate  of  sin  and  love  of  perfection,  into  contact 
with  God  Himself. 

3.  The  Church  of  Christ  is  being  studied  more  and 
more  as  an  ethical  force,  and  here  again  it  not  only 
excels  all  other  religious  organisations,  such  as  the 
Hindu  or  Buddhist  or  Mohammedan  religions  have 
created,  but  sets  itself  in  a  peculiar  relation  with  the 
most  fundamental  human  institutions,  such  as  the 
family  and  the  State.  Even  in  its  earhest  days,  as 
the  New  Testament  proves  so  abundantly,  the  young 
community  felt  that  new  light  had  been  thrown  upon 
all  the  essential  elements  of  human  social  experience. 
Yet  no  formal  programme  of  reconstruction  was  an- 
nounced. There  is  a  reserve  about  the  original  Christian 
teachers  which  is  almost  a  proof  of  their  inspiration  or 
divine  guidance.  They  do  not  declare  an  open  war 
upon  slavery  or  the  autocracy  of  the  Empire.  They 
do  not  sketch  out  an  ideal  commonwealth,  nor  even 
an  ideal  Christian  Church.  With  a  superhuman  wisdom 
they  are  confined  to  the  discussion  of  principles  which 
underlie  all  organisation,  or  of  individual  and  local  pro- 
blems in  whose  right  solution  later  generations  find 
guidance  for  situations  and  perplexities  no  human 
intellect  could  possibly  have  conceived  of  in  Apostolic 
times.  But  it  is  remarkable  to  watch  the  sane  judg- 
ment, the  keen  and  delicate  insight  of  these  disciples 
of  Jesus.     While  they  do  not  speculate  about  the  nature 

of  the  virtues,  they  name  them,  possess  them  in  their 

—  207  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

hearts,  practise  them  in  their  lives.  A  light  seems 
to  shine  upon  the  moral  universe  which  reveals  to  them 
right  and  wrong,  truth  and  He,  the  pure  and  the  impure 
in  concrete  cases,  as  no  human  eyes  had  ever  seen 
them  before.  So  have  we  beheld  perhaps  a  sudden 
burst  of  sunshine  fall  through  a  sky  of  black  clouds 
upon  an  island  set  in  dark  and  sullen  waters.  With 
startling  clearness  and  in  unnatural  detail  each  stone 
and  twig  and  leaf  is  picked  out  and  defined.  The  dull 
rocks  gleam  and  the  pine  trees  stand  out  in  unwonted 
glory.  So  did  the  heavenly  light  fall  upon  the  Church 
enisled  in  that  hostile  heathen  world,  and  all  virtues 
and  all  graces  shone  radiant  and  real  before  the  men 
whose  Redeemer  and  Master  was  Christ. 

(1)  The  purely  ethical  force  of  Christianity  arises  and 
can  only  arise  from  the  ethical  conditions  under  which 
its  local  churches  as  social  institutions  are  gathered 
together.  What  their  members  are  to  one  another  is 
the  leaven  which  is  transforming  the  social  structure 
of  the  world.  No  mere  preaching  about  virtue  from 
those  untutored  lips  could  have  moved  the  Empire 
with  the  sense  of  a  changed  moral  atmosphere.  No 
formal  exposition  or  philosophy  of  righteousness  could 
have  done  it.  The  Epistles  of  Paul  derived  all  their 
ethical  power  from  the  fact  that  they  were  addressed 
to  communities  which  were  already  organised  on  the 
Christian  basis.  The  moral  function  of  these  letters 
was  to  elucidate  and  make  evident  to  each  Church  the 

real  meaning  of  its  existence  as  a  community  which 

—  208  — 


THE  VITAL  MEANING  OF  CHURCH  AND  BIBLE 

was  established  on  a  new  moral  basis.  If  a  missionary 
were  to  invade  a  Chinese  village  to-day  with  a  startling 
programme  of  social  and  moral  reform,  and  seek  first  to 
convince  the  people  of  the  value  of  that  programme 
in  the  abstract  and  of  its  practical  nature,  he  could 
receive  nothing  but  misunderstanding  and  hostility. 
What  he  does  as  a  Christian  evangelist  is  to  form  a 
community  upon  the  basis  of  a  new  relationship  of  each 
individual  with  God  in  Christ.  That  Christian  com- 
munity contains  in  its  very  structure  a  moral  and  social 
programme  of  changes  so  vast  that  only  a  few  Christian 
communities  have  yet  caught  glimpses  of  their  real 
meaning,  and  no  country  in  Christendom  has  yet  felt 
their  full  force. 

(2)  We  can  here  do  little  more  than  name  a  few  of 
the  conditions  of  membership  in  the  Christian  com- 
munity which  have  exerted  most  influence  upon  social 
ideals  and  practice. 

(a)  All  men  are  viewed  by  the  gospel  as  equal  in 
their  need  of  the  divine  salvation,  and  as  equal  in  their 
capacity  for  receiving  it.  This  position  may  be  affirmed 
here  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  some  people,  on  so-called 
psychological  grounds,  have  lately  maintained  that  men 
have  varied  capacities  for  rehgious  experience,  that  some 
were  born  to  be  devout  and  some  born  to  be  inevitably 
secular  or  sensual  in  their  minds.  This  is  an  unexpected 
revival  of  hyper-Calvinism,  and  may  be  left  out  of  con- 
sideration here.     The  New  Testament  offers  the  divine 

mercy  to  all,  and  charges  all  with  personal  responsi- 
14  —  209  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

bility  for  obedience  or  disobedience  to  its  challenge 
and  its  call.  This  means  that  in  respect  of  salvation, 
i.e.  of  the  ultimate  valuation  which  God  puts  upon 
human  lives  and  His  exertion  of  power  upon  them, 
the  outward  social  distinctions  between  man  and  man 
have  no  place  at  all.  We  may  still  count  a  general 
higher  than  a  private  solidier  for  purposes  of  war,  a 
king  does  occupy  a  more  exalted  station  than  a  subject, 
a  man  of  culture  is  preferable  for  some  reasons  to  a  man 
of  simple  education  ;  but  these  distinctions  are  of  partial 
and  temporary  significance.  They  have  no  bearing  upon 
the  right  or  power  of  a  man  to  be  in  the  Church 
of  Christ,  nor  do  they  afford  any  clue  to  his  standing 
before  God  in  the  day  of  his  judgment. 

(b)  And  yet  the  Christian  religion  did  from  the  first 
appeal  to  and  stimulate  the  intelligence  of  all  who  came 
under  its  influence.  Just  because  it  revealed  a  God 
acting  in  history,  history  acquired  a  new  reality  and 
attraction.  The  past  was  not  henceforth  to  be  con- 
sidered as  merely  past  and  done  with,  if  a  deed  of  God 
on  a  definite  day  and  place  is  the  salvation  of  all  gener- 
ations. The  nations  were  not  to  be  any  longer  super- 
ficially regarded  as  having  wholly  separate  interests, 
if  one  who  is  the  Son  of  Man  is  the  Redeemer  and  Lord 
of  all.  And  not  the  past  ages  only,  but  the  invisible 
universe  also  comes  within  the  ken  and  is  faced  by  the 
quickened  conscience  of  the  man  who  would  deal  with 
God   as    God   deals   with  him,  through  the  risen  and 

reigning  Christ.     The  material  for  a  philosophy  is  here 
—  2IO  — 


THE  VITAL  MEANING  OF  CHURCH  AND  BIBLE 

which  shall  surpass  that  of  any  pre-Christian  school,  and 
yet  it  is  presented  to  the  mind  of  the  humblest  with 
inspiring  and  ennobHng  effect.  It  gives  every  man  a 
new  and  intense  interest  in  the  world  around  him.  The 
Roman  Empire  becomes  a  definite  object  of  thought, 
of  critical  thought,  of  moral  consideration,  in  an  entirely 
new  manner  to  soldier  and  civilian,  Roman  and  Phrygian 
alike.  Moreover,  it  was  felt  from  the  first  that  the 
exercise  of  this  intelligence  was  one  of  the  conditions 
of  salvation.  Hence  the  Apostles  became  teachers, 
and  made  arrangements  everywhere  for  systematic 
instruction. 

To-day  throughout  the  world  it  is  not  secular 
prosperity,  but  the  Christian  gospel,  which  is  the  most 
powerful  promoter  and  the  most  ardent  friend  of  uni- 
versal education.  The  Church  has  in  this  as  in  other 
matters  by  no  means  proved  itself  infallible.  It  has 
made  many  and  even  disastrous  mistakes.  Its  lessons 
have  not  all  been  learnt  yet,  and  through  many  a  bitter 
struggle  on  this  question  it  must  press  on  in  every 
land  under  heaven.  But  it  remains  true  now  as  at  the 
beginning  of  its  days,  that  of  all  human  interests  the 
Christian  religion  can  least  afford  to  ignore  the  task 
of  quickening  intelligence,  and  bringing  each  human 
mind  face  to  face  with  the  divine  meaning  of  the  uni- 
verse as  a  whole  and  the  history  of  man.  The  spreading 
work  of  this  universal  religion  is  the  one  guarantee  we 
have  that  at  last  all  human  beings  shall  be  able  at  least 

to  read  the  Word  of  Life  for  themselves. 
—  211    — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

(c)  The  mode  by  which  the  Christian  rehgion  has 
cleared  the  moral  vision  and  strengthened  the  moral 
character  of  various  races  is  to  be  found  in  the  mutual 
relations  of  its  members,  and  in  its  influence  upon  the 
ideal  of  family  life.  When  people  of  the  most  diverse 
races,  social  conditions,  and  personal  character  were 
brought  together  in  the  early  churches,  entirely  new 
demands  were  made  upon  them.  They  must  actually 
learn  to  love  each  other,  and  this  love  must  be  expressed 
in  all  kinds  of  deeds.  They  must  trust  each  other, 
and  so  learn  to  practise  utter  truthfulness  in  their 
mutual  conduct.  They  must  serve  each  other,  primarily 
in  spiritual  and  therefore  in  all  other  affairs.  They  must, 
in  fact,  feel  and  live  as  a  pure  and  strong  and  happy 
brotherhood.  Where  the  outer  world,  or  individuals 
in  it,  heard  of  this  new  kind  of  social  life  it  felt  the 
thrill  of  its  ideal  beauty.  In  spite  of  the  usual  foul 
suspicions  which  were  spread  through  every  city  about 
the  evil  purposes  of  their  secret  assemblies,  suspicions 
which  did  much  to  inflame  the  spirit  of  persecution, 
it  did  become  known  that  "  these  Christians  loved  one 
another  "  in  a  pure  and  noble  and  novel  manner  of  lave  ; 
and  defenders  of  the  Christian  cause  like  Tertullian 
were  able  to  appeal  to  the  generous  charities  and  chaste 
lives  of  the  Christians  as  to  facts  well  known,  though 
poorly  weighed  by  their  unjust  judges  and  political 
enemies. 

One  of  the  foundations  of  all  Christian  morality  is 

to  be  found  in  the  command  of  an  Apostle,  "  Honour 

—  212  — 


THE  VITAL  MEANING  OF  CHURCH  AND  BIBLE 

all  men."  It  forbade  all  contempt  for  any  race  or  any 
class  of  human  beings.  It  endowed  with  deeper  mean- 
ings and  inspired  with  a  universal  efficacy  the  brilliant 
saying  of  a  heathen  writer,  that  "  Man  is  a  sacred  fact 
for  man."  The  sanctity  could  now  be  seen  and  felt  by 
others  than  meditative  philosophers  living  remote  from 
sordid  Hves.  It  rose  to  view  with  faith  in  the  Redeemer 
and  His  Cross,  in  the  Father  and  His  love,  in  the  Spirit 
and  His  universal  appeal.  That  word,  and  such  pieces 
as  the  letter  of  the  Apostle  Paul  to  Philemon,  were 
revelations  of  a  new  force  in  human  history  which 
shall  not  cease  from  its  working  until  slavery  in  every 
form  is  shattered,  and  deliberate  injustice  or  selfish 
greed  is  universally  despised  by  the  human  heart.  We 
see  not  yet  this  long  task  accomplished.  Some  are 
disheartened  because  results  have  been  so  slow,  and 
others  are  contemptuous  as  though  it  were  not  the 
Spirit  of  Christ  in  His  Church  that  has  secured  even  the 
meagre  victories  of  the  past.  But  neither  class  has  a 
right  to  their  judgment  either  of  disappointment  or  of 
scorn.  The  work  is  long  and  complex,  because  human 
society  is  so  deeply  entangled  in  sin  and  social  wrong, 
and  because  the  Spirit  of  Christ  has  no  better  medium 
through  which  to  work  than  the  obscured  vision  and 
imperfect  faith  and  unclear  consciences  of  such  men 
as  we  are  to-day  in  the  Church  of  to-day.  But  the  work 
which  has  been  done  is  great  indeed.  Many  sins  lurk 
only  in  corners  of  Christian  cities  which  flaunt  in  the  very 

temples  and  the  open  streets  of   heathendom.    Some 
—  213  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

forms  of  slavery  are  for  evermore  rendered  impossible, 
and  others  are  being  tracked  to  their  origins  and  await 
their  doom.  Above  all,  ideals  of  justice,  of  freedom,  of 
brotherhood,  of  purity  are  earnestly  cherished  and 
publicly  propagated,  which  are  only  the  offspring  of 
that  new  life  planted  in  the  Church  of  Christ  by  the 
indwelling  presence  of  God  Himself. 
'.      _      j>'  ■  ■  ■     ' . 

II.  The  Bible 

We  have  already  said  that  the  Christian  faith  has 
been  perpetuated  in  history  by  two  institutions, — the 
Church  and  the  Bible.  In  making  a  brief  statement 
about  the  latter  we  must  perforce  begin  by  emphasising 
the  use  of  that  word  "  institution."  A  piece  of  writing 
which  is  nothing  more  than  the  expression  of  individual 
feeling  or  opinion  is  not  in  the  true  sense  an  institution, 
however  excellent  may  be  its  literary  qualities  or  crucial 
its  place  in  the  history  of  thought.  But  if  a  piece  of 
writing  becomes  the  controller  of  a  communal  life,  it 
takes  on  the  form  of  a  living  institution.  Such  a  docu- 
ment as  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  or  such 
a  work  as  the  Koran,  is  an  institution  in  this  sense.  It 
holds  an  inner,  organic,  formal  relation  to  the  organised 
life  of  a  society  of  men.  Of  this  class  of  works  is  the 
Bible.  It  rose  out  of  the  intense  and  progressive  re- 
ligious life  and  experience  of  Israel  and  the  nascent 
Christian   Church.     But   it   came   rapidly   and   indeed 

necessarily  to  be  regarded  as  something  more  than  the 
—  214  — 


THE  VITAL  MEANING  OF  CHURCH  AND  BIBLE 

record   of   a   spiritual   history,   whose   significance   lay 

wholly  in  the  past,  or  the  expression  of  personal  ideals 

and  attainments.     It  was,  and  it  is,  felt  to  be  necessary 

for  the  religious  experience  of  all  races  in  all  times  to 

come.     The  reason  Hes  in  the  conviction  that  the  Bible 

describes  acts  of  God  upon  the  hearts  and  minds  of  men 

which  were  of  such  a  kind  as  to  create  or  open  the  way 

of  communion  with  Him  for  every  child  of  man.     A 

divine  purpose  Hes  in  the  reHgious  story  of  Israel  and 

in  the  birth  of  the  Christian  Church,  which  takes  up 

the  record  of  these  into  itseK  and  makes  that  record 

an    instrument    of    God's    deahngs   with  all  following 

generations. 

This  comes  out  most  clearly  in  the  case  of  the  New 

Testament.     When  the  Spirit  came  upon  the  Apostolic 

Church,  and  its  full  and  real  life  began,  an  essential 

condition  of  that  life  was  the  witness  of  the  Apostles. 

The  vital  importance  of  this  lay  in  the  double  fact  that 

they  had  been  chosen  by  Jesus  as  the  inner  circle  of  His 

disciples,  to  whom  He  most  fully  unfolded  His  mind 

and  the  power  of  His  Person,  and  that  they  had  been 

chosen  to  see  and  recognise  and  commune  with  Him 

after    the    Resurrection.     These    relations    with    Jesus 

Christ   can   never   be   repeated.     They   are   absolutely 

unique,  and  for  the  existence  of  the  Church  they  are 

absolutely    essential.       By    a    supreme    act    of    God's 

selecting  grace  and  power  the  Apostle  Paul  was  added 

to  this  group.     He  had  received  a  form  of  preparation 

which  has  proved  no  less  vital  for  the  Church's  experi- 
—  215  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

ence  and  faith  than  that  which  consisted  in  following 
the  earthly  ministry  of  Jesus  ;  and  to  him  who  was  the 
chief  enemy,  the  most  convinced  and  instructed  and 
determined  persecuter  of  the  Church,  the  Risen  Christ 
had  appeared  in  a  manner  of  peculiar  significance.  He 
ever  after  knew  himself,  and  the  Apostolic  Church  con- 
fessed him,  to  be  an  organ  of  the  Spirit  of  God  for  the 
apprehension,  dissemination,  and  interpretation  of  the 
gospel  of  salvation. 

The  earliest  churches  were  founded  by  or  were 
immediately  guided  by  these  Apostles.  Wherever  they 
went  it  was  felt  that  their  teaching  had  an  authority 
which  could  be  possessed  by  no  other.  Hence  their 
oral  accounts  of  the  ministry,  death,  and  resurrection 
of  Christ  became  speedily  arranged  into  forms  con- 
venient for  the  memory,  and  were  also  written  down 
and  became  the  basis  of  our  Four  Gospels  (see  Luke 
i.  1-4).  Their  addresses  to  the  non-Christian  world  are 
preserved  for  us  only  in  the  meagre  though  most  precious 
records  of  the  Book  of  Acts.  But  as  the  Church  in- 
creased in  numbers  and  power,  and  as  the  Apostles 
extended  their  journeys,  it  became  necessary  for  them  to 
send  letters — some  of  them  formal,  some  of  an  informal 
character — to  individuals  and  communities.  These  were 
probably  copied  very  freely,  and  circulated  more  or 
less  widely  from  the  beginning.  As  the  apostolic  age 
drew  to  an  end,  and  especially  in  the  next,  the  sub- 
apostolic  stage  of  history,  we  find  many  half-pathetic 

and  yet  fervid  references  to  the  teaching  of  the  Apostles, 

—  216  — 


THE  VITAL  MEANING  OF  CHURCH  AND  BIBLE 

as  being  ever  essential  to  the  continued  existence  of 
the  Church.  But  signs  soon  appeared  that  oral  tradition, 
even  in  the  "  unforgetting  East,"  is  at  best  a  precarious 
record  of  the  past.  It  is  always  plastic  to  the  touch 
of  the  human  spirit,  which  receives,  moulds,  and  trans- 
mits it.  Hence  vigorous  steps  were  taken  to  gather, 
identify,  and  preserve  the  writings  of  the  Apostles. 

We  cannot  here  enter  into  any  of  the  innumerable 
perplexing  problems  which  arise  from  the  effort  to  re-tell 
the  story  of  the  New  Testament  canon.  We  must  be 
content  with  having  stated  thus  briefly  the  impulses 
which  brought  it  into  existence.  And  here  it  is.  Criti- 
cism has  not  yet  proved  that  its  account  of  the  rise  of 
the  gospel  is  not  to  be  trusted,  or  that  the  vast  majority 
of  these  writings  did  not  come  from  the  teaching  and 
direct  authority  of  the  first  circle  of  Apostles.  It  is  for 
us  to-day  what  the  oral  witness  of  the  Apostles  was 
in  Judea  and  Syria,  in  Galatia  and  Macedonia,  in  Athens 
and  Kome.  It  brings  us  into  immediate  personal  con- 
tact with  the  creative  acts  of  God,  by  which  for  us 
and  for  our  salvation  He  sent  His  own  Son  into  the 
world,  and  appointed  Him  to  die,  and  raised  Him 
from  the  dead,  and  gave  Him  in  the  outpouring  of  His 
Spirit  to  be  the  Saviour  and  Lord  of  all  who  believe 
in  Him.  But  there  are  three  things  which  we  may  add 
about  the  New  Testament,  and  which  may  serve  to  knit 
together  what  has  already  been  set  down  : 

(1)  In  the  first  place,  the  question  which  has  troubled 

some  theologians  as  to  whether  the  organised  Church 

—  217  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

or  the  Bible  is  supreme  is  really  irrelevant.  They  are 
institutions  which  both  arose  out  of  the  experience 
and  witness  and  work  of  the  Apostles  of  Christ.  They 
are  both  organs  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  and  they  are  there- 
fore organically  related  to  and  dependent  on  one  another. 
As  we  cannot  conceive  the  gospel  of  Christ  taking  hold 
of  human  history  without  creating  its  own  community, 
destined  to  cover  the  earth  and  to  bring  forth  every- 
where out  of  the  old  and  perishing  race  the  new  and 
real  and  final  form  of  humanity,  so  we  cannot  conceive 
of  it  without  that  primal  witness  of  the  Apostles,  that 
original  and  originating  statement  of  the  gospel,  which 
alone  could  authenticate  the  truth  for  all  coming  genera- 
tions. The  Bible  is  merely  the  preservation  of  the 
apostolic  witness  to  the  origin  and  nature  of  the  gospel ; 
the  Church  is  the  solid  organism  created  through  that 
witness.  In  modern  days  we  have  learnt  to  use  what 
seem  to  us  deeper  words  about  these  facts  than  our 
fathers  knew.  We  cannot  think  of  the  Church  as  a 
mere  association,  nor  as  an  organisation,  with  its  officials 
exactly  and  formally  defined  in  function  and  relation 
and  title  for  all  circumstances  and  all  ages.  Nor  can 
we  think  of  the  Bible  as  a  kind  of  legal  document,  whose 
words  taken  separately  are  capable  of  direct  application 
to  the  details  of  every  human  Ufe  and  the  variations 
of  human  thought.  Each  of  these  institutions  is  of  a 
living  nature.  It  grew  from  the  witness  of  the  Apostles 
and   from  the  presence    and   power  of    the  Spirit  of 

Christ  in  that  witness. 

—  218  — 


THE  VITAL  MEANING  OF  CHURCH  AND  BIBLE 

(2)  In  the  second  place,  the  facts  which  are  before 
us  constitute  the  Bible  as  the  supreme  authority  for 
faith  and  practice  among  Christians.  The  nature  of 
authority  in  general,  and  its  particular  seat  or  seats 
in  the  Christian  religion,  is  a  large  and  intricate  topic. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  that  only  can  be  an  ultimate  author- 
ity for  the  faith  and  practice  of  Christians  which  brings 
them  even  in  the  most  widely  separated  fields  of  thought 
and  conduct  under  the  supreme  power  of  the  Saviour 
and  Lord  of  man.  Nothing  does  this  as  the  witness 
of  His  Apostles  preserved  for  all  generations  in  the 
New  Testament  has  done  it  from  the  first  day  until 
now.  After  historical  study  has  done  its  utmost  to 
trace  the  literary  history  of  these  documents,  to  dis- 
cover the  various  forms  of  secular  culture  which  played 
upon  the  minds  of  their  authors,  they  are  still  there 
in  the  form  which  they  have  possessed  since  the  end 
of  the  apostolic  period.  No  other  can  tell  us  what  the 
gospel  is  with  a  more  authoritative  voice  than  they. 
Beyond  them  we  can  appeal  to  none  higher  to  tell  us 
what  God  did  in  Christ  to  create  this  new  life  in  human 
experience,  to  bind  the  sinful  in  peace  and  faith,  in  love 
and  hope,  to  His  own  heart  of  mercy  and  of  power.  To 
know  how  and  why  we  may  trust  in  the  Fatherhood 
of  God,  how  and  why  we  may  best  spend  our  swift 
lives  in  the  fulfilment  of  His  abiding  and  eternal  will, 
we  must  all  at  last  depend  on  those  pages  as  on  no  other 
word  or  institution  which  all  the  ages  of  endeavour 

have  produced.    Over  and  over  again  the  Church  has 
—  219  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

found  that  here,  in  this  book  of  the  first  witnesses  to 
Christ,  it  has  the  means  by  which  its  false  develop- 
ments may  be  corrected,  its  thoughts  may  be  restrained 
from  conclusions  which  are  fatal  to  the  power  of  Christ, 
its  conduct  may  be  brought  back  to  the  test  of  a 
divine  purity  and  an  eternal  righteousness.  By  appeal 
to  it  Athanasius  in  one  century  and  Augustine  in  the 
next,  whatever  imperfections  clung  to  their  teaching, 
saved  the  Church  from  the  threatening  inundations 
of  heathenism.  By  reopening  its  fountains  and  letting 
them  flow  upon  various  portions  of  Europe,  Francis 
of  Assisi  and  Luther  (how  different  their  methods  and 
spirit !)  both  gave  men  to  taste  again  a  little  of  the 
airs  of  that  first  glorious  springtide  when  the  Prince 
of  life  made  the  Apostles  radiant  with  the  joy  and 
power  of  God's  delivering  grace. 

(3)  The  Bible  is,  then,  the  permanent  instrument 
of  the  Spirit  of  God.  Wherever  it  goes  the  fruit  of  the 
Spirit  begins  to  appear  among  men.  That  is  why  in 
the  last  century  of  world-wide  missions  it  has  been 
translated  into  more  than  four  hundred  languages. 
That  is  why  no  mission  is  felt  to  be  complete,  though 
it  have  hospitals  and  meeting-houses,  charities  and 
teachings,  unless  it  has  planted  the  Bible  in  the  life 
of  the  people.  There  is  here  again  something  mystical 
which  we  may  all  see  and  feel  and  cherish,  though  it 
be  hard  to  name  and  impossible  to  define.  Some  speak 
with  scorn  of  bibholatry,  and  urge  that  the  Bible  be 
reduced  to  the  level  of  other  books  if  we  would  save 

—   220  — 


THE  VITAL  MEANING  OF  CHURCH  AND  BIBLE 

the  world  from  a  new  form  of  superstition.  And  truly 
we  must  not  be  superstitious  or  foolish  or  irrational 
in  the  place  which  we  assign  to  it  in  the  life  of  the 
Church  and  in  relation  to  our  faith.  But  yet  this  book 
does  stand  related  to  the  Spirit  of  God  and  to  the 
faith  and  destiny  of  man  in  a  manner  which  is  with- 
out comparison  or  rivalry.  Through  it  He  still  speaks 
to  mankind.  Its  pages  still  glow  with  a  personal 
appeal  which  comes  from  the  throne  of  the  universe 
to  the  individual  heart  and  conscience.  God  has  made 
it  most  truly  and  powerfully  His  word  in  which  a  second 
time,  as  it  were,  He  is  incarnate  for  the  apprehension 
and  obedience  of  mankind.  These  ancient  writings 
contained  the  message  which  He  breathed  into  the 
souls  of  His  beloved  Apostles,  selected  for  this  very 
purpose ;  and  through  them,  as  we  read  them,  He 
moves  still  among  men. 

This  Bible  is  part  of  the  secret  by  which  original 
Christianity  remains  final,  and  by  its  means  the  original 
gospel  is  being  carried  to  the  whole  creation. 


221    — 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE  MISSIONARY  IMPULSE 

XN  preceding  chapters  we  have  been  studying  the 
nature  of  the  Christian  reUgion,  so  as  to  discover 
the  nature  of  its  claim  to  be  the  absolute  rehgion,  and 
the  relation  of  that  claim  to  its  missionary  function. 
In  it  we  see  not  so  much  man  finding  God  by  his  own 
outreaching  towards  the  Divine,  as  God  revealing  Him- 
self in  His  personal  relations  and  purposes  towards  man 
by  acts  of  transcendent  meaning  and  power.  Those 
acts  of  God,  when  they  take  effect  upon  the  human  soul, 
become  the  substance  of  Christian  experience.  When 
they  are  considered  in  their  historic  setting  and  in  their 
cosmic  significance,  they  determine  the  distinctively 
Christian  view  of  God  and  the  world ;  they  constitute 
Christian  doctrine  and  the  Christian  message.  What 
we  have  now  to  consider  more  closely  is  the  fact  that 
these  Christian  truths,  when  accepted  and  obeyed 
most  fully  and  intelligently,  have  from  the  first  created 
the  missionary  impulse.  That  impulse  takes  form  in 
the  individual  as  a  mighty  desire  to  make  known  to 
others  the  gospel  which  he  has  experienced,  and  which 
he  beUeves  that  God  gave  to  the  world.  It  is  the  reflec- 
tion in  his  will  of  the  revealed  will  of  God  towards  man. 

—    222   — 


THE  MISSIONARY  IMPULSE 

Nothing  seems  to  him  so  great,  so  worthy  of  a  man's 
life,  as  this  effort  to  make  the  Christian  faith  prevail 
over  all  hearts,  and  transfigure  all  Uves  throughout 
the  world.  That  for  which  God  ha«  loved  humanity- 
he  beheves  that  he  knows,  and  he  yields  himself  as  the 
instrument  of  this  sublime,  this  divine  purpose. 

But  each  man  has  approached  the  gospel  on  his 
own  feet,  along  his  OAvn  path,  and  each  man  will  give 
his  own  account  of  his  missionary  impulse.  For  when 
one  explains  or  defends  any  impulse  from  which  he  acts, 
he  does  so  always  by  changing  it  into  a  reason.  He 
seeks,  as  it  were,  to  universaUse  his  personal  feeling, 
to  see  it  in  that  system  of  life  in  which  he  is  involved 
with  other  reasonable  beings.  Hence  those  who  are 
acting  under  this  great  Christian  impulse  will  be  found 
always  to  explain  the  dedication  of  their  lives  by  Hnking 
their  will  in  that  act  with  some  one  or  more  aspects  of 
the  Christian  system.  The  greatest  and  wisest  among 
them  will  give  many  reasons,  but  all  their  reasons  will 
be  found  to  lie  not  in  a  mere  feeling,  but  out  there  in 
the  Christian  system  as  they  see  it,  and  in  its  relation 
to  humanity. 

It  must  be  our  task  now  to  deal  with  some,  the  most  im- 
portant, of  these  explanations  of  the  Christian  missionary 
impulse. 

I.  The  Propagation  of  Life 

We  may  begin  with  one  explanation  which  has  no 

doubt    unconsciously  swayed    multitudes,  namely,  the 

—  223  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

fundamental  impulse  to  propagate  life.  We  are  told 
in  the  Fourth  Gospel  of  the  woman  who,  "  when  she  is 
deHvered,  remembereth  no  more  the  anguish,  for  the 
joy  that  a  man — a  human  being — is  born  into  the  world." 
There  is  the  deep  racial  instinct  at  work,  without  which 
no  child  could  be  loved,  without  which  mankind  could 
not  endure.  It  is  remarkable  that  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment the  missionary  impulse  allies  itself  with  this 
instinct.  It  has  been  pointed  out  above  how  soon 
and  how  powerfully  the  early  Christians  conceived  of 
themselves  as  belonging  to  a  new  race,  not  Roman 
or  Greek  or  Jewish,  nor  a  mere  conglomerate  of  these, 
but  a  race  as  real  as  any  other,  yet  embracing  children 
of  them  all.  "  Ye  are  an  elect  race,  a  royal  priesthood, 
a  holy  nation,  a  people  for  God's  own  possession " 
(1  Pet.  ii.  9).  St.  Paul  speaks  still  more  boldly  when  he 
declares  that  Christ  has  overcome  the  opposition  between 
Jew  and  Gentile,  "  that  He  might  create  in  Himself 
of  the  two  one  new  man  "  (Eph.  ii.  15).  The  Apostles 
felt  that  they  were  most  intimately  concerned  with 
the  work  of  bringing  the  new  race  into  actual  being. 
It  is  something  more  than  a  mere  effusion  of  tenderness, 
it  is  the  consciousness  of  a  vital  and  mystic  relation 
between  his  converts  and  himself,  which  St.  Paul  some- 
times described  in  most  daring  language  (Gal.  iv.  19; 
1  Th.  ii.  7, 11 ;  1  Cor.  iv.  14-17  ;  2  Cor.  vi.  13  ;  Philem.  10  ; 
1  Tim.  i.  2  ;  2  Tim.  i.  2  ;  Titus  i.  4 ;  cf .  1  John  ii.  1 ; 
3  John  4).     To  him  the  family  of  God  was  most  real ; 

the  eternal  life  was  no  mere  future  state,  but  a  present 

—  224  — 


THE  MISSIONARY  IMPULSE 

power.  And  he  saw  and  felt  that  those  over  whom  he 
laboured,  and  who  entered  into  that  Ufe,  into  that 
supreme  family  relationship,  through  his  prayers  and 
his  teaching,  stood  for  ever  as  in  a  sense  the  offspring 
of  his  spirit.  All  true  ministers  have  entered  into  this 
joy  in  their  own  measure.  And  many  have  gone  out 
into  the  work  of  evangelists  under  this  most  sacred  and 
deep  impulse,  yearning  to  communicate  the  great  new 
life  beating  in  their  own  hearts,  to  see  it  spring  up  in 
other  lives. 

II.  Loyalty  to  Christ 

Th«  supreme,  explicit  reason  for  the  missionary 
impulse  may  best  be  summed  up  in  the  words,  "  loyalty 
to  Christ."  We  have  already  seen  that  in  the  Christian 
faith  He  sits  supreme,  the  Redeemer  in  whose  great 
sacrifice  of  love,  the  love  of  the  Almighty  and  eternal 
God  for  each  human  being  is  opened  upon  man's  vision 
and  breaks  in  upon  his  heart.  He  is  also  the  Lord, 
the  Leader  or  Captain  of  the  Christian  community, 
which  is  knit  together  by  the  will  to  do  His  will,  to 
follow  out  his  purposes  towards  mankind. 

1.  The  Purpose  of  Christ. — The  one  word  in  which 

the  purpose  of  Christ  is  summed  up  is — "to  bring  men 

to  God."     That  was  the  mind  which  was  in  Him  when 

He  laid  aside  the  form  of  God  and  became  incarnate, 

when  he  girt  His  human  will  for  obedience,  "  yea  even 

unto  the  death  of  the  Cross."     The  same  mind  is  in 

Him  to-day  as  His  very  Spirit  works  in  human  history. 
15  —  225  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

His  will  is  to  bring  men  unto  God.     As  one  who  has 

accepted  Christ's  leadership,  with  all  it  means,  gazes 

directly  and  intently  upon  that  will,  the  missionary  spirit 

is  stirred  in  him.    As  he  looks  from  the  foot  of  that  kingly 

throne  at  which  he  kneels  day  by  day  out  upon  the  world, 

as  he  realises  that  the  eyes  of  his  King  are  watching 

with  an  infinite  and  eternal  love  all  those  teeming  sons 

of  men,  he  finds  his  own  heart  reflecting  that  divine 

passion  of  desire,  his  own  will  gradually  directed  and 

finally  determined  simply  to  live  for  Christ's  own  end, 

to  bring  men  to  the  love  of  God  the  Father.     When 

that  has  taken  place  the  Christian  man  is   naturally 

and  inevitably  led  to  regard  it  as  the  call  of  Christ  to 

himself.     Without    superstitious  waiting    for  voices  or 

outward  signs,  he  receives  the  certainty  that  loyalty 

to  Christ  means  the  mission  field  for  him  ;    just  as  at 

an  earlier  day  he  discovered  that  his  faith  in  Christ  was 

God's  gift,  that  it  was  the  seal  of  his  personal  salvation 

set  upon  his  own  will  by  the  Spirit  of  the  Eternal. 

2.  The  Cross. — The  man  whom  this  view  of  the  will 

of  Christ  has  begun  to  move  mightily  finds  it  throwing 

a  bright  light  upon  the  whole  work  of  Christ  as  the 

Redeemer  and  Lord  of  men.     With  a  new  fascination 

he  regards  the  gospel  story  in  which  what  we  may  call 

the  universaHty  of  the  consciousness  of  Jesus  stands 

revealed.     While  He  confined  his  own  earthly  ministry 

to  the  boundaries  of  the  Jewish  people,  He  yet  dealt 

with  them  on  broad  and  human  grounds.     He  did  not 

limit  His  call   "  Come  unto  Me "   to  the  children  of 

—  226  — 


THE  MISSIONARY  IMPULSE 

Israel.  He  did  not  say,  "  Every  Jew  that  confesseth 
Me  before  men,  him  will  I  also  confess  before  My  Father 
which  is  in  heaven."  He  did  not  say,  "The  Son  of 
man  came  ...  to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for  all  who 
are  already  loyal  to  Moses."  In  all  such  sayings 
Jesus  set  Himself  in  relation  with  human  nature  as 
such.  He  makes  us  see  and  feel  that  He  was  dealing 
with  the  fundamental  relations  of  the  whole  race  with 
God.  He  evidently  intended  to  teach  and  labour,  to 
su£fer  and  rise  again,  "  that  repentance  and  remission 
of  sins  should  be  preached  in  His  name  unto  all  the 
nations  "  (Luke  xxiv.  46,  47).  It  is  therefore  impossible 
for  any  one  intelUgently  to  look  upon  the  Cross  of  Christ 
in  its  individual,  without  looking  upon  it  also  in  its 
universal,  aspect.  No  man  dare  say,  "  He  loved  me 
and  gave  Himself  up  for  me,"  without  remembering 
that  all  men  have  the  same  right  to  use  those  w^ords  ; 
and  no  one  man  can  use  them  fully  of  himself  while 
in  his  spirit  he  denies  them  to  any  class  or  race  of  man. 
Before  that  Cross,  as  we  have  already  seen,  all  geograph- 
ical, racial,  educational,  social  obstructions  vanish.  It 
is  the  universal  human  situation  which  it  deals  with, 
and  each  man  who  finds  it  applied  to  his  own  case  has 
looked  into  the  depth  and  height,  as  it  were,  of  the 
heart  of  Christ  as  He  willed  on  the  Cross  to  change 
the  relations  of  man  and  God. 

3.  His    Great    Command. — But    loyalty    to    Christ 
attaches  itself  not  only  to  the  leadership  of  Christ  on 

his  throne,  directing  the  history  of  His  Church  out- 

—  227  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

wards  upon  the  race,  not  only  to  that  will  of  His  in  the 
wonderful  days  of  his  flesh,  as  He  moved  towards  the 
Cross,  it  also  bows  in  reverence  before  His  explicit  words. 
No  one  who  beheves  in  the  fact  of  the  Resurrection  can 
reasonably  doubt  that  the  Gospels  have  preserved  in 
varjring  forms  of  words  His  direct  and  final  command 
to  His  disciples  to  proclaim  His  gospel  to  the  whole  race. 
"Go  ye  therefore  and  make  disciples  of  all  the  nations  " 
(Matt,  xxviii.  18-20) ;  "  Go  ye  into  all  the  world  and 
preach  the  gospel  unto  the  whole  creation  "  (Mark  xvi. 
15;  cf.  Luke  xxiv.  25-27,  44-49;  John  xx.  19-23). 
The  missionary  nature  of  the  Christian  rehgion  Ues, 
as  we  have  seen,  in  its  very  nature,  and  many  of  the 
most  thoughtful  and  powerful  missionaries  have  felt 
the  impulse  arise  within  them,  as  they  found  themselves 
personally  related  to  that  Divine  Person  and  the  virtues 
of  His  redeeming  work,  and  as  they  saw  into  the  white 
and  burning  centre  of  that  love  of  His  for  all  men.  But 
the  missionary  Church  is  right  to  set  those  explicit 
words  emblazoned  on  high  as  the  formal  charter  of  its 
world-wide  and  endless  empire.  From  the  hps  of  the 
Risen  Lord  they  fell.  They  uttered  His  will,  expressed 
once  for  all  and  for  ever  the  consciousness  which  filled 
His  mind  and  will  no  less  in  the  dark  depths  of  Gethse- 
mane  than  on  the  Mount  of  the  Ascension.  They  formally 
sealed  that,  His  consciousness,  upon  the  consciousness 
of  those  men  as  the  law  of  the  Church's  very  being. 
Before  the  larger  community  was  gathered  together, 
before  the  first  word  of  witness  was  borne  from  behevers 

—    228   — 


THE  MISSIONARY  IMPULSE 

to  those  who  knew  not  the  God-wrought  story  of  salva- 
tion, before  the  first  table  of  communion  was  set  up  or 
the  first  convert  to  the  Christian  faith  was  baptized,  the 
Lord  of  the  Church  wrote  upon  its  primary  group  the 
nature  and  the  end  of  their  existence  as  His  Church. 
And  loyalty  to  Christ  to-day  is  summed  up,  for  an 
increasing  number  of  souls,  in  direct  obedience  to  those 
supreme  words  through  which  alike  the  mission  of  the 
Church  and  the  destiny  of  the  world  stand  revealed 
in  their  mutual  dependence :  "  Preach  the  Gospel 
to  the  whole  creation." 


III.  The  Nature  of  Christian  Experience 

We  come  to  a  third  ray  of  light  which  falls  upon  the 
missionary  impulse.  We  have  seen  it  as  the  energy 
of  the  new  Ufe  which  animates  the  Christian  com- 
munity, and  as  the  expression  of  individual  loyalty  to 
Christ,  the  Redeemer  and  Master  of  mankind,  for  fulfil- 
ment of  His  purpose  and  obedience  to  His  command. 
It  is  also  quickened  by  the  conditions  and  nature  of 
that  experience  which  we  have  studied. 

1.  The  Gospel  a  Social  Fact. — It  is  important  here  to 

recall  the  fact  that  this  is  in  no  sense  a  purely  private 

experience.     Personal   or  individual  we   must   call  it, 

for  here  individuality  is  reaHsed  in  a  manner  and  to  an 

intensity  of  degree  which  no  other  human  relationship 

or  conduct  makes  possible.     There  is  a  true  and  deep 

sense  in  which,  when  the  gospel  seizes  a  man's  soul,  it 
—  229  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

reveals  his  personality  to  himself,  and  creates  new 
ranges  and  qualities  of  individuality  within  him.  A  man 
is  never  fully  the  man  he  was  designed  and  intended 
and  called  to  become  until  his  personal  nature  is  united 
with,  filled  out,  and  completed  by  union  with  God  in 
Christ.  But  while  this  is  true,  the  other  side  must  not 
be  forgotten.  The  gospel  is  a  social  fact.  To  us  all 
it  comes  through  the  mediation  of  the  Christian  com- 
munity. That  community  produced  and  has  dissemin- 
ated the  Scriptures,  the  witness  of  the  primary  Christians 
to  the  nature  of  the  gospel.  That  community,  multi- 
form now  beyond  our  description,  through  some  human 
agency  brought  that  witness  to  our  doors,  urged  it 
upon  our  consciences,  instilled  its  truths  into  our  minds. 
The  gospel  is  a  social  fact,  received  by  the  individual 
through  and  in  the  midst  of  a  community — a  small 
group,  or  even  one  messenger  it  may  be,  representing 
the  vast  Church  of  God,  the  whole  body  of  living  and 
faithful  souls  who  confess  the  Name  of  Christ.  It 
streams  to  him,  indeed,  from  God's  own  Spirit,  an  inward 
personal  act  of  God  upon  himself,  with  elements  in  it 
which  are  his  very  own,  alone,  and  can  belong  to  none 
other.  But  it  streams  to  him  also  at  first  and  at  last 
through  others,  through  the  written  page  of  Scripture 
and  the  preacher's  voice,  through  the  intercession  of 
the  Church  and  its  praises,  through  its  symbols  of 
ceremonial  and  sacrament.  It  is  a  debt  which  each 
man  owes  to  other  men. 

2.  The  Inner  Meaning  of  Mercy, — We  may  go  even 

—  230  — 


THE  MISSIONARY  IMPULSE 

deeper  into  the  experience  of  the  mercy  of  God.     That 

mercy,  immeasurable,  inexpHcable,  descends  upon  the 

individual   as    a   gift    offered    to    all.      When    modern 

evangelists  use  with  inexhaustible  effect  the  old  words 

"  whosoever  will,"  their  effort  is  to  get  men  to  see  in  that 

phrase  the  strange  interblending  of  the  universal  and  the 

particular.     "  Whosoever  "  is  a  distributive  word  which 

seems  to  isolate  a  man  and  deal  with  him  singly.     But 

the  gospel  message  so  isolates,  or  would  isolate,  every 

man   without   exception.     It   is   out   of   that   glorious 

universal  call  that  the  overwhelming  individual  appeal 

at  last  reaches  the  inner  seat  of  the  heart  and  the  will. 

I  do  not  understand  mercy  till  I  have  seen  it  directed 

upon  me,  but  I  could  not  so  see  it  until  it  shine  before 

me  and  above  me  like  an  encircling  and  universal  sky 

embracing  all  human  beings  in  its  blessed  light.     Even 

here,  then,  in  the  lonely  hour  when  remission  of  his  own 

sins  is  granted  to  each  man,  he  owes  it  to  the  fact  that 

he  belongs  to  the  race  upon  which  the  mercy  of  God 

has  fallen. 

The  divine  mercy  is  then  something  which  can  be 

truly  understood  in  its  individual  appUcation  only  when 

it  is  seen  in  its  general  intention.     Each  man  must 

meet  the  will  of  God  as  He  directs  His  grace  upon  all 

men.     He  must  see  its  wonder,  its  searching  beauty,  its 

merciless  exposure  of  all  sin,  and  its  merciful  wiping  out 

of  all  guilt,  in  order  to  grasp  that  grace  for  himself.     In 

the  very  act  of  accepting  mercy  he  must  feel  mercy — 

"  Blessed  are  the  merciful,  for  they  shall  obtain  mercy." 
—  231  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

But  who  can  thus  truly  see  the  ''  wideness  of  God's 
mercy,"  and  who  can  thus  appreciate  it  as  the  source 
of  his  personal  salvation  and  object  of  his  personal  faith, 
without  feehng  the  impulse  to  convey  it  unto  others  ? 
If  I  can  only  receive  a  boon  for  myself  because  it  is 
intended  for  all,  how  can  I  avoid  the  wish,  or  stifle  the 
will,  that  it  shall  reach  all  because  it  has  reached  me  ? 
The  very  sense  of  a  baffling  and  inscrutable  Providence 
which  overwhelms  one  when  he  asks  the  unanswerable 
question,  why  this  word  of  grace  has  come  to  him  and 
not  to  one  thousand  million  other  persons  in  the  world 
to-day,  ought  to  arouse  in  him  the  determination  to  do 
something  that  the  word  may  spread  from  heart  to 
heart  till  all  the  world  is  leavened  with  that  grace.  The 
missionary  impulse  springs  from  the  experience  of 
personal  salvation,  because  when  a  man  enters  upon 
this  experience  he  does  so  as  a  child  of  the  race. 

IV.  The  World  and  its  Need 

We  have  seen  the  missionary  impulse  as  it  arises 
from  the  energy  of  the  new  life,  from  loyalty  to  Christ, 
from  the  innermost  implications  of  the  experience  of 
salvation.  We  must  try  to  understand  how  it  is  related 
with  the  world  when  looked  at  in  the  light  of  the  gospel. 

1.  The  Meaning  of  Humanity. — The  coming  of  Christ 
and  His  Spirit  changed  the  meaning  of  the  word  humanity. 
There   had  been   among   Greek   and   Roman   thinkers 

some  insight  into  the  unity  of  mankind,  but  it  had  not 

—  232  — 


THE  MISSIONARY  IMPULSE 

been  deep  and  true  enough  to  create  a  new  and  perma- 
nent personal  attitude.  A  Roman  poet  did  say,  "Nothing 
human  is  foreign  to  my  interest,"  and  the  thriUing 
word  must  be  ever  welcome  to  our  hearts.  It  was 
a  foregleam  of  that  full  sunhght  which  the  gospel  of 
Christ  alone  has  shed  abroad  upon  the  human  race. 
We  must  admit,  of  course,  that  even  in  Christendom, 
race  prejudice  still  holds  our  hearts  in  bondage.  They 
are  few  and  rare  souls,  indeed,  of  whom  it  can  be  said, 
that  none  of  the  distinctions  among  men  which  arise 
from  colour,  or  social  standing,  affect  their  conduct  or 
even  their  feelings  toward  their  fellowmen.  But  it  is  a 
matter  of  supreme  meaning  that,  in  spite  of  that  fact, 
the  missionary  impulse  is  sending  people  all  over  the  world 
who  are  determined  to  see  and  act  upon  humanity  in 
every  child  of  the  race,  and  pour  something  of  the  love 
of  God  through  their  own  hearts  upon  the  lowest 
members  of  the  race.  The  vast  works  of  philanthropy, 
which  involve  close  fellowship  and  even  intimacy  with 
the  pitiable  objects  upon  whom  their  redeeming  efforts 
are  spent,  would  be  impossible  unless  a  new  power  had 
appeared  to  make  that  other  Roman  saying  about  the 
"  sac  redness  of  man  "  more  clear  and  more  real  than  it 
was  to  the  philosophic  and  superior  Stoic  of  old. 

(1)  One  Race. — In  the  first  'place,  modern  philosophy, 
as  well  as  modern  studies  in  history  and  ethnology, 
have  not  only  compelled  us  to  say  that  mankind  is  one 
race,  they  have  revealed  to  us  the  greatness  of  the 

nature  which  we  call  human.     Something  of  the  infinite 
—  233  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

seems  to  be  suggested  by  all  the  central  powers  of  man. 
Reason,  ever  growing  in  its  grasp  of  the  outward  word, 
and  withal,  holding  infinite  ideals  in  its  grasp  ;  conscience, 
claiming  the  authority  to  utter  the  laws  of  a  rational 
universe ;  imagination,  a  glowing  fire  from  which  warmth 
and  beauty  are  flung  out  upon  the  coldest  seas  and  the 
most  distant  star ;  love,  which  even  in  the  dullest  heart 
may  suddenly  wake  to  utter  its  claims  of  endless  life, 
indignant  at  the  separating  grave, — all  these  and  any 
other  power  which  may  belong  to  man  as  man  possess 
a  dignity,  suggest  a  glory  not  to  be  measured  in  earthly 
terms.  These  forms  of  knowledge  cannot  discover 
man's  actual  destiny,  but  they  show  us  man's  capacity 
for  some  great  destiny.  They  describe  to  us  a  nature, 
"  heaven's  consummate  cup,"  so  nobly  planned  that  we 
must  not  only  admire  it  as  it  is,  but  expect  some  greater 
thing  from  it  and  of  it,  which  no  eye  has  seen  nor  ear 
heard,  nor  has  it  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to  con- 
ceive it. 

(2)  The  Revealed  Destiny. — In  the  second  place,  while 
philosophy  sets  man  sub  jade  ceternitatis,  discloses  that 
he  is  fashioned  for  an  infinite  end,  that  end  cannot  be 
defined.  The  eternity  of  which  Philosophy  speaks 
remains  an  empty  form.  It  has  no  describable  substance. 
It  may  say  with  Kant  that  man  must  pursue  the  good 
will  as  an  infinite  and  for  ever  unattainable  goal.  It 
may  tell  us  that  man  is  pursuing  "  the  pathway  to 
reality  "  or  perfecting  "  individuality."  But  none  of 
these  terms,  valuable  in  their  place,  can  give  to  the 

—  234  — 


THE  MISSIONARY  IMPULSE 

capacity  of  a  man .  a  concrete  achievement  which 
immediately  glows  with  substantial  reahty.  Philo- 
sophy can  neither  lift  history  above  time  nor  drag  its 
eternal  goal  down  and  set  it  there  ardent,  mystic, 
actual  to  win  our  love  and  dominate  the  whole 
movement  of  our  living  energy.  Christianity  alone 
has  ever  professed  to  satisfy  this  need.  It  has  set 
humanity  sub  facie  Christi.  Now  the  face  of  Christ  is 
at  once  a  historical  and  an  eternal  fact.  In  Him  the 
infinite  good  has  suddenly  become  actual  in  history. 
The  perfectly  good  will,  conscious  of  its  triumph,  the 
final  individuality,  conscious  of  its  perfect  reality,  is 
there  in  Him.  The  Christian  man,  knowing  Christ, 
knows  what  is  to  be  made  of  man.  The  meaning  of  our 
nature  stands  revealed  in  Him  whose  love  led  Him  to 
the  Cross  and  whose  power  lifted  Him  from  the  dead  to 
the  throne  of  God.  There  the  cup  of  human  nature 
stands,  fashioned  gloriously,  with  the  very  life  of  God 
filling  it  full. 

(a)  For  one  thing,  man  was  the  object  of  the  love  of 
Jesus  even  in  His  earthly  life.  No  one  has  put  the 
meaning  of  this  more  beautifully  than  the  author  of 
Ecce  Homo  :  "Of  this  race  Christ  HimseK  was  a  member, 
and  to  this  day  is  it  not  the  best  answer  to  all  blas- 
phemers of  the  species,  the  best  consolation  when  our 
sense  of  its  degradation  is  keenest,  that  a  human  brain 
was  behind  His  forehead  and  a  human  heart  beating  in 
His  breast,  and  that  within  the  whole  creation  of  God 
nothing  more  elevated  or  more  attractive  has  yet  been 
—  235  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

found  than  He  ?  .  .  .  And  yet  He  associated  by  pre- 
ference with  these  meanest  of  the  race.  .  .  .  There  is 
nothing  of  which  a  man  may  be  prouder  than  this  ; 
it  is  the  most  hopeful  and  redeeming  fact  in  history  ; 
it  is  precisely  what  was  wanting  to  raise  the  love  of  man 
as  man  to  enthusiasm.  An  eternal  glory  has  been 
shed  upon  the  human  race  by  the  love  Christ  bore 
to  it." 

We  must  add,  of  course,  that  the  love  of  Christ  for 
man  reached  its  perfect  as  well  as  its  most  mysterious 
expression  in  His  sacrifice  on  the  Cross.  If  man's 
measureless  guilt  in  His  view  made  that  most  dreadful 
deed  of  His  will  upon  His  own  heart  necessary.  He 
performed  it  because  He  saw  in  man  that  which  was 
worthy  of  being  redeemed.  Man's  original  power  to 
receive  the  life  through  the  love  divine  must  be  restored 
at  any  cost,  that  the  eternal  will  of  his  Creator  may  be 
done.  This  joy  was  before  Jesus  when  He  endured  the 
Cross,  despising  shame.  This  joy  of  His  drops  into  the 
heart  of  His  disciple  as  the  impulse  of  the  missionary 
and  the  philanthropist. 

(&)  The  man  who  gives  himself  to  Christian  service, 

if  by  any  means  he  may  save  some,  is  one  who  has 

caught  a  glimpse  of  the  infinite  value  of  the  human 

soul.     That  glance  of  its  glory  may  be  connected  with 

a  study  of  its  capacities,  but  it  came  primarily  from  the 

revelation  of   the   intention   of   God.     The   cup   exists 

not  for  itself  ;    it  is  beautifully  fashioned  in  base  and 

rim  for  uses  of  a  cup,  for  the  joy  of  Him  at  whose  feast 

—  236  — • 


THE  MISSIONARY  IMPULSE 

of  love  it  is  destined  to  serve.  The  infinite  value  of 
human  nature  is  suggested  by  its  rehgious  capacity  ;  it 
is  revealed  and  made  sure  in  the  whole  work  of  God  in 
Christ  and  in  the  descriptions  of  that  eternal  kingdom, 
that  family  of  God,  that  host  of  the  redeemed,  that 
temple  in  which  God  is  revealed,  that  city  in  which 
his  own  Light  stands,  which  our  Lord  and  His  Apostles 
gave  to  the  world.  Many  an  eager  saintly  spirit,  brood- 
ing over  this  will  of  God,  has  been  fired  with  the  passion 
to  open  that  world  of  hope  to  the  bewildered  souls 
that  know  not  how  great  they  are,  nor  how  near,  when 
Christ,  is  named,  stands  the  infinite  measure  and  assur- 
ance of  their  destiny. 

2.  The  Dreadful  Need  of  Humanity, — Over  against 
the  world  in  its  splendid  capacity  we  must  fix  our  eyes 
steadfastly  on  the  world  in  its  dreadful  need.  As  we 
have  already  seen,  the  very  history  of  man's  religious 
endeavours  is  a  most  pathetic  witness  to  "  something 
wrong  "  at  the  very  root  of  his  life.  Splendid  indeed 
have  been  many  of  his  religious  aspirations,  inspiring 
have  been  many  of  his  words  uttered  in  moments  of 
true  and  deep  insight.  But  everyvt^here  we  find  proof 
that  his  striving  for  God  has  been  deflected  and  defeated 
by  some  other  force  in  his  nature  and  experience. 
What  barbarities  and  tortures  has  he  not  inflicted  in 
the  name  of  his  gods  and  for  their  approval !  What 
extremes  of  anguish  has  he  not  endured  as  proofs  at  once 
of  his  insatiable  appetite  for  some  supreme  good  and 

of  his  inveterate  tendency  to   mix  it  with  iniquity ! 
—  237  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

And  nowhere  has  he  found  a  true  and  lasting  peace. 
The  enlightenment  of  Buddha  was  only  partial  and 
incapable  in  its  original  form,  still  more  so  in  its  later 
developments,  of  conferring  that  glorious  and  positive 
sense  of  triumph,  that  possession  of  the  pardon  of  God, 
that  assurance  of  life  everlasting,  which  the  consummate 
religion  can  only  bestow. 

The  Christian  man  knows,  as  he  regards  even  the 
history  of  religion,  that  he  is  looking  on  the  desolation 
of  sin.  It  has  clouded  man's  vision,  it  has  blocked  his 
way,  it  has  oppressed  his  heart.  The  sense  of  right 
undone,  of  wrong  accomplished,  is  not  peculiar  to  the 
higher  civilisations.  An  accusing  conscience  casts  its 
shadow  throughout  the  world  upon  the  human  spirit. 
It  underlies  all  legislation  and  government,  it  reared 
every  altar  of  expiation,  it  sang  every  dirge  of  hopeless 
woe.  To  quell  it  man  has  put  on  the  garments  of  joy, 
but  the  flowers  always  wither.  He  has  tried  to  simulate 
the  peace  it  had  shattered,  to  despise  the  victory  of  the 
grave,  to  be  content  with  pleasure  of  the  senses,  to  cage 
his  infinite  yearnings  within  the  bars  of  time  and  cir- 
cumstance, even  to  torment  and  mutilate  his  poor  body 
that  his  spirit  might  have  peace.  But  always  in  vain. 
"  I  ought  "  is  a  feeling  that  woke  up  in  man's  breast 
when  he  first  sought  the  Divine  ;  it  woke  with  the 
pang  of  remorse,  and  the  pang  has  survived  all  devices, 
save  only  the  Cross  of  Christ. 

But  the  Christian  man  of  to-day  is  peculiarly  sensitive 

to  the  fact  that  the  desolation  of  sin  is  no  mere  inward 

—  238  — 


THE  MISSIONARY  IMPULSE 

and  secret  sorrow  of  the  religious  soul.     It  appears  out- 
wardly in  all  the  wrongs  that  infest  the  relationships 
of  men.     True  it  is,  as  we  have  seen,  that  sin  is  the 
misuse  of  appetites  and  impulses  seated  in  man's  original 
nature,   and  themselves   sinless.     But  the  fact  of   the 
desolation  is  spread  over  the  whole  of  human  history. 
The  lust  of  the  flesh  and  the  pride  of  the  spirit,  the 
passion  for  power  and  the  will  to  deceive,  have  worked 
in  all  races.     They  have  reared  empires  on  the  graves 
and  crushed  hearts  of  conquered  races  ;   and  they  have 
undermined  and  cast  the  same  empires  down  into  the 
dust.     In  our  day,  even  in  Christian  lands,  the  social 
desolation  of  man  has  evoked  the  zeal  of  all  reformers, 
and   sent   whole   armies    into    the    highways   of    social 
service.     The  Christian  man,   believing  that  until  the 
broken  relations  with  God  are  set  right,  until  the  state 
of  sin  is  removed,  these  desolations  must  persist,  gives 
himself  to  the  service  of  that  gospel  which  deals  first 
with  sin  that  it  may  cleanse  the  fountainhead  of  greed 
and  self-will,  of  passion  and  crime.     He  knows  that  he 
is  working  at  the  root  of  all  social  evil  when  he  seeks 
to  bring  the  conscience  to  that  peace  of  God,  in  whose 
light  righteousness  shines  clear  and  in  whose  merciful 
love  the  heart  of  man  learns  the  love  of  man. 

3.  The  Doom  of  Impenitence. — There  is  another 
view  of  the  situation  which  was  more  emphasised  in  a 
former  day  than  in  our  own,  and  which  we  may  describe 
as  the  doom  of  impenitence.     It  would  be  right  to  say, 

perhaps,  that  the  error  of  that  former  time  lay  not  so 

—  239  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

much  in  mere  exaggeration  of  this  peril  of  the  human 
soul,  but  in  its  isolation.  It  is  not  the  sole  fact  nor 
the  whole  truth  about  man.  But  it  is  assuredly  one 
element  or  aspect  of  his  condition  which  it  is  mere 
blindness  not  to  see,  and  sheer  folly  not  to  treat  with 
appropriate  energy  and  awe.  No  book  throws  so  bright 
a  light  upon  the  destiny  of  man  as  the  Bible,  but  the 
corresponding  shadow  is  proportionately  dreadful  and 
dark.  It  was  Jesus  who  so  loved  man  as  we  have  seen, 
who  could  be  so  broad  and  generous  and  even  genial 
in  His  treatment  of  the  facts  before  Him  in  the  multi- 
form interests  of  human  society,  who  yet  could  utter 
the  words  of  most  astounding  and  even  of  appalUng 
severity.  It  was  He  who  used  the  word  "  lost,"  and 
He  allowed  no  exceptions  to  be  made  in  its  appHcation. 
That  is  enough.  He  saw  multitudes  Uving  without 
God,  some  openly,  some  as  the  hypocrites.  He  saw 
the  possibility  of  a  final  impenitence.  He  and  His 
Apostles  have  taught  us  that  the  children  of  darkness 
may  prefer  that  darkness  when  the  intensest  light  of 
God  is  shining  straight  upon  their  hearts  and  minds. 
The  wondrous  charity  of  the  New  Testament  which 
recognises  that  in  every  nation  he  who  worketh  righte- 
ousness is  accepted  of  God,  must  not  paralyse  but 
quicken  the  missionary  impulse.  For  surely  if  men 
are  to  be  judged  according  to  their  light,  they  will  do 
better  in  a  brighter  light.  Surely  if  in  all  heathen 
religions   there   is   expressed    in   some   measure   man's 

hunger  for  the  divine,  they  who  have  the  secret  of  that 

—  240  — 


THE  MISSIONARY  IMPULSE 

true  Bread  of  Life  must  take  it  to  them,  lest  they  fail 
to  find  it.  Surely  if  the  will  may  become  impenitent, 
it  ought  to  have  every  chance,  which  the  very  grace  of 
God  can  give  it,  to  turn  unto  righteousness  and  repent 
and  live.  This  religious  view  of  man's  situation,  as  one  of 
infinite  danger,  led  Jesus  to  the  Cross  and  sent  forth  all 
the  great  heralds  of  His  salvation  to  the  ends  of  the  earth. 
Two  final  observations  must  be  made  : 

1.  In  the  first  place,  the  missionary  impulse  is  com- 
posed of  two  elements,  the  sense  of  a  supreme  com- 
passion and  the  feeling  of  an  everwhelming  debt.  The 
pity  is  born  in  a  man's  heart  from  the  new  love  of  God 
and  from  his  new  insight,  which  that  very  love  makes 
clear  and  poignant,  into  man's  dreadful  need.  The 
debt  is  felt  to  be  a  debt  of  honour.  No  institution  can 
enforce  it.  No  human  being  can  judge  his  neighbour 
in  respect  of  the  manner  and  amount  of  its  payment. 
It  rests  upon  every  man's  honour  to  see  it  and  weigh 
it  and  pay  it.  It  may  be  put  briefly  in  two  sentences — 
"  What  I  have  freely  received  I  owe  to  him  who  has  it 
not.  Especially  do  I  owe  the  greatest  boon  to  the 
direst  need." 

2.  In  the  second  place,  the  man  who  believes  in  the 

gospel  of  Christ  with  all  it  contains,  not  only  of  grace 

offered  now,  but  of  human  glory  prophesied  hereafter, 

knows  that  he  is  here  gazing  upon  the  deepest  form 

of  reality.     What  does  not  belong  to  this  fife  in  Christ 

from  God  must  pass  from  human  experience.     From 

this  and  around  this  must  gather  all  that  henceforth  is 
i6  —  241  — 


THE  FINAL  FAITH 

to  be  human  nature  and  a  human  world.  Through  Christ 
and  His  work  the  divine  purpose  with  man  is  as  it  were 
gazing  in  upon  our  souls  and  challenging  our  confidence, 
our  hfe's  devotion,  in  the  call  to  beUeve  and  serve  the 
gospel.  That  divine  purpose  is  the  substance  of  man's 
nature  and  history,  the  final  reaUty  for  which  all  the 
stages  of  history  are  but  the  scaffolding  and  the 
tools. 

We  may  put  it  this  way — All  are  agreed  that  much 
of  what  seems  most  solid  in  our  experience  is  evanescent. 
Most  are  agreed  that  if  anything  is  to  last  or  preserve 
its  identity  for  ever,  and  so  prove  itself  of  supreme 
value,  it  must  be  sought  not  in  the  physical,  nor  in  the 
fitful  pulses  of  pleasurable  emotions,  nor  in  the  forms 
of  earthly  knowledge,  but  solely  in  the  moral  nature 
of  man,  in  a  good  conscience,  a  will  made  one  with  the 
will  of  God.  There  you  strike  upon  the  indestructible 
thing,  the  one  form  of  reality  that  must  live  as  long  as 
God.  But  here  is  our  climax  of  glorious  assumptions, 
our  claim  which  outtops  all  wildest  effronteries  of  the 
human  spirit.  We  of  the  Christian  world  hold  this  as 
our  fundamental  conviction  that  only  through  the  power 
of  Jesus  Christ  is  that  good  conscience,  that  unity  of 
man's  will  with  God's  will,  being  actually  created.  This 
conviction  is  Christianity,  and  to  deny  it  is  to  lose  the 
whole  Gospel. 

The  preacher  and  teacher,  the  humblest  ministrant 
of  the  gospel,  is  working  for  that.     He  may  close  his 

eyes  to  all  other  careers,  and  be  deaf  to  other  praise. 

—  242  — 


THE  MISSIONARY  IMPULSE 

This  is  praise  enough,  and  here  is  work  sublime  enough. 
It  brought  the  Son  of  God  to  earth,  that  He  might  in 
our  world  produce  that  which  when  all  else  has  vanished 
for  ever  will  remain  for  ever — the  human  soul  alive  for 
ever  in  God. 


—  243  — 


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